Helping home owners sell or let their homes online

At a glance

• A brand premium enough to take to investors
• Investment secured, which eventually led the founders to an exit (twice, as it turned out)

The problem

Urban was early. It had been selling and letting homes online for over a decade, back when most people assumed you needed a high street shop window to sell a house.

Then the crowd arrived. By 2016 new online agents were springing up to copy the model, and every one of them promised to charge less than the high street.

The website wasn't helping. It had passed through a succession of designers and agencies, growing a bit at a time with no solid design foundation underneath, so it couldn't scale as quickly as the business needed it to.

And the timing was awkward. Pre-seed investment was on its way, investors would be looking closely, and the EU referendum had the country (and the property market with it) holding its breath.

Urban needed a brand that could stand up to that kind of scrutiny and give the business something solid to grow on.

The solution

1. Looking like the original

Getting there first doesn’t help much if customers can’t tell you apart from the copycats. I wanted Urban to feel confident and modern, and closer to a tech startup than an estate agent.

2. Bold on purpose

Estate agents tend to play it safe with their branding, which made it easy to stand out. I chose bold colours and Omnes, a friendly, rounded typeface that works just as well on a website as on a For Sale board.

3. A device that stands on its own

The logo device doesn't need the wordmark beside it, so it still holds up when space is tight.

Outcomes

The new brand gave Urban something they could show investors with pride. It was also the start of a long working relationship.

The business secured investment, and the founders went on to exit twice. The first was a merger with Emoov and Tepilo in 2018. They then bought the business back and sold it to Howsy in 2019.