Kumuka (meaning ‘the beginning of a journey’) is a travel company established in 1983 that provides over 450 different trips for adventurous families and group parties. They operate tours in over 75 countries with a mission to provide people with the opportunity to “experience their holiday to the maximum”. This week sees the introduction of their new logo designed to better capture the adventure and diversity of the trips they provide.

“We wanted a new brand to say something about the people who travel with us. Our clients are fun, professional and adventurous…” – Meg Hall Head of Communications Asia Pacific

This is a significant improvement, the original is static and unwelcoming, the colours are bland and lack any excitement, while the typography suffers from some tracking issues and looks more like a technology company.

In contrast this new vision delivers more energy and spontaneity, the colours are far more vivid and there is more movement and character embodied in the type treatment (which looks like a custom script), unfortunately the strap-line makes the lock up feel slightly awkward and unbalanced.

The globe logomark has been updated but it comes across as a little contrived, obvious and unnecessary, there is enough character in the logotype to mark it out from its competitors. It is well executed and functions sufficiently to express the dynamic global nature of the company but its reliance on gradients means it falls a little short when seen in single colour. This problem is mitigated in their premium service logos where Kumuka have opted for a single colour type only version, this is combined with a fairly standard sans serif used to convey the ‘premium’ nature of their services and works well with the quirky script.

This is an effective overhaul and does away with a number of problems the original logo had and replaces them with a sense of excitement, adventure and expresses their care free, hassle free holiday proposition.