Ranch Pros Real Estate | Robots Made This

RPRE

Ranch Pros Real Estate

A bit of history.

Ranch Pros Real Estate is a rebrand of New Mexico Ranch Pros. In an effort to grow and expand the business into the entire southwest, renaming and rebranding was essential.

Let's run that back.

The first time I met Brandon and Stephana, it was to work on a project for Stephana's mother. She owned a fascinating business that helped children understand their learning style and gave them tools and resources to succeed in school. We worked together to build a brand and a website. A few years later, Brandon and Stephana reached out to me when they purchased a local office furniture store that was in desperate need of a facelift. They had a great vision for where BFS (Business Furniture Systems) could go, so we created a brand for Office Logix. (see logo below)

I won't go into all the details of this project, or how we got here, but the outcome was something we all loved. In fact, it was such a great experience that when the Paterson's had an opportunity to be a part of what New Mexico Ranch Pros was trying to accomplish, they gave me a call to help.

LIFESTYLES OF THE...

The vision for RPRE was that of a high end ranch broker. Think Sotheby's, but for ranches. They wanted to create a brand that would encourage both owners of multi-million dollar estates or those looking to purchase them, to trust RPRE with the transaction.

We have to start somewhere.

The initial versions of the NMRP/RPRE logos were all over the place. There were several people involved in the process and you know the saying about too many cooks in the kitchen... Needless to say, the outcome was something that no one wanted to eat.

As you can see, the designs were all over the place. We had one person who wanted to play up the hunting aspect, another who wanted to play up the ranching, another who wanted more of a hunting lodge feel.

The next versions of logo were more ranch/horse heavy (see below).

Well, that's a first.

The feedback that I got from this group was "The logo looks too pretty."

...

So I created version 3, that took a bit of the polish off and landed here.

As you have probably noticed, they did go back and forth on the name a few times as well. There was a bit of heart burn over losing the cache that New Mexico Ranch Pros had built up since 2005. That said, the team was pretty happy with the outcome of this logo and was ready to move forward.

but...

to borrow a phrase that I used above, this was not a meal I was ready to eat.

REBRANDING THE REBRAND

If this were a reality show, this is the part where I would have one of those confessionals- I'm imagining it would have gone something like this:

Me: so I don't know how we ended up here. This isn't good, this is not where we need to be and I'm not sure why no one sees it. Oh and Brandon is always leaving dishes in the sink, it's not my job to clean up after him.

Now I obviously don't have a clue what Brandon does with his dishes but I did have more than a few clues that this logo was not the foundation of the brand we were looking for.

Time to work.

I really had no one to blame but myself for this. I am the professional that they reached out to for help and although they were driving, I continued to put gas in the car.

Taking responsibility for where we found ourselves, I got to work. I started at the very beginning, reading every email, every text exchange and researched tons of competitors. Honestly, this is work that I should have done but took a shortcut because of my existing relationship with Brandon. I thought that because we had worked together in the past, we would be able to skip a step or two.

It was a mistake.

While the team was ready to move forward, I was putting together what I should have put together from the onset. A few days later I sent a message saying the following:

Hello RPRE team,

I want to apologize for not holding up my end of the deal. When you reached out to me, the expectation was that I would be guiding you through this process and I feel like I've let you down. The RPRE logo that we arrived at does not meet the requirements that we laid out from the onset. This logo cannot be the cornerstone of the brand and will not give you the status you're hoping for. I've attached a completely new logo concept, I think you'll find that this one does meet your goals.

Let's set up a time to discuss.

Thanks,

Jay

The Reaction

We love it. It's perfect, let's talk on Tuesday to discuss the next steps.

TUESDAY

The follow up on Tuesday went really well. The team was thrilled with the concept and really grateful. For the rest of the project they asked me to do whatever I thought was best. They wanted business cards, yard signs, letterhead, a website, etc. I suggested that we start with a brand guide and build from there.

Spoiler alert

The rest of the deliverables went as well as one could hope for. With each item delivered, the team was thrilled. I hope to have the opportunity to work with this group again.

In the spirit of letting you get through my portfolio quicker, I'm just going to drop the remaining deliverables below.

Business cards

Email Signature

Website

I'm realizing as I post this that the website that I designed for them has gone a bit awry. I handed off the final files for the team to take over several months ago and it looks like they have made some edits in the direction of "more is more". I'm dropping a screenshot below. Here is the link as well. If you take a look at the other assets I created, I'm sure you'll be able to quickly see the bones of the original website that I created.

With a quick glance at the screenshot I can tell you that the background image has changed, the top logo is twice as large as the original and a second logo has been added to the section below. I could go page by page and discuss the original design with the edits that have been made, but that is something we'll have to do together.