Morgan Stanley Brand Refresh

CHALLENGE Morgan Stanley experienced challenges maintaining consistency in its design and branding across its global organization, creating a fragmented experience for clients, shareholders and employees. The Firm lacked guidelines that could define its many design elements, improve the user experience with our many brand touchpoints and strengthen compliance with ADA best practices. APPROACH To solve these issues, we strategized to build an accessible, consistent and recognizable visual identity system with a modern look and feel that would be applied and maintained globally across all channels. The system would enhance the firm’s global equity and recognition through codified design guidelines and resources for designers across the firm. SOLUTION To establish and communicate the new visual identity system, we created a comprehensive series of guidelines that outline clear recommendations for various design elements, including the logo, layouts, color palettes, iconography, typography and imagery. These guidelines improve our global design practices in a few essential ways: • COHESION: They provide transparent guidance around our brand to help our organization work as one. • ACCESSIBLE: They provide compliant design assets that support our dedication to accessibility, especially within digital environments. • SCALABLE: They establish a consistent design approach through a user-friendly, self-serve system that will be refreshed as needed. IMPACT The new visual identity system and guidelines have been monumental in driving efficiency across Morgan Stanley’s design processes, providing accessible templates, imagery, clear recommendations and more to streamline designers’ work. Better still, the design enhancements have helped us deliver an integrated firm experience to our clients. They have a better understanding of how different business units at Morgan Stanley are situated and work with one another, thanks to the organization and unity that has been established visually.

From the original award submission.