Navi Africa: Brand identity and mobile app design for a concierge app
Navi Africa is a pioneering brand in the African travel industry, providing a comprehensive and user-friendly mobile app.
About
Navi Africa is a cutting-edge African travel concierge app, designed by local experts to offer safe, affordable, and engaging tourist experiences. It helps users with personalized itineraries and addresses essential travel needs.
The company seeks to challenge misconceptions about Sub-Saharan Africa by authentically showcasing the region’s diverse cultures, activities, landscapes, cuisine, and local experiences that travelers can explore.
Challenge
The main challenge was countering the prevailing, yet largely inaccurate, narrative perpetuated by mainstream media and popular culture, which predominantly casts the African continent in a negative light.
It focuses on corruption, conflict, disease, crime, and poverty, leading to a widespread perception of Africa primarily as a region overwhelmed by its challenges. However, the reality of Africa is one of extraordinary diversity and richness. The continent is a mosaic of vibrant cultures, stunning landscapes, unique cuisines, and exclusive local activities.
This diversity offers a deeply authentic and unparalleled traveling experience, which can only be truly appreciated through direct engagement with the continent's numerous nations and their people. When developing the concierge service app, we aimed to reframe this narrative and highlight the true, multifaceted nature of the African continent, showcasing its beauty, diversity, and wealth of experiences.
Scope of work
In collaboration with Navi Africa, we developed a thorough branding strategy that covered every aspect of the client's business. This included designing a distinctive logo, selecting suitable fonts, and choosing a color palette that aligns with the brand's identity.
Additionally, we compiled these elements into a detailed brand style guide, ensuring consistency and coherence in all visuals and communication materials. Our comprehensive approach reinforced the brand's image and strengthened its market presence. What’s more, we played a crucial role in the redesign of the concierge app for Navi Africa.
Solution
To beat the challenge, we built a modern, sleek, and reliable branding for Navi Africa, repositioning them in the travel, hospitality, and service industries. Our innovative branding strategy was designed to showcase the diverse offerings of the African continent and establish the company as a trustworthy and pioneering travel companion.
By infusing local insights with a contemporary aesthetic, we transformed Navi Africa into a platform that offers personalized travel experiences and serves as an ambassador, reshaping global narratives and inviting travelers to explore the true essence of Africa's hospitality and beauty.
This strategic rebranding for a personal concierge app was pivotal in realigning the company’s position in the market as a modern, sophisticated, and trustworthy travel companion. It also spearheaded a perception shift about Nigeria and other African countries within the global travel and hospitality sector.
Logo development
Inspired by Navi Africa's role as a dependable guide for travelers, we created a compass-themed logo that symbolizes the app’s essential navigation and orientation functions. The wordmark typography complements this design, with each letter subtly shaped like an arrow to reflect the compass motif. It reinforces the concierge app identity as a key tool for exploring Africa.
Monumentality of architecture
Our initial concept drew inspiration from navigation devices and symbols. We experimented with incorporating the letter 'N' into the logo, using its lines as arrows to indicate direction. We developed several versions in various styles, all maintaining an elegant, sleek, and symbolic look.
Result
The concept of Navi Africa as a reliable and trusted guide for travelers seeking adventures, entertainment, and activities across African countries deeply inspired us. The concierge app acts as a navigational tool, guiding users through a broad spectrum of choices and opportunities, ensuring they find precisely what they are looking for.
This vision led us to design a logo that embodies a compass, symbolizing the app's role as a crucial source of navigation and orientation while traveling. It reflects the app's functionality and also reinforces its identity as a reliable partner in the exploration of Africa's rich landscapes and cultures.
The typography of the word mark was designed to harmonize with and mirror the lines of the compass logo, where each letter subtly takes on the form of an arrow.
Branding
We refined Navi Africa's brand identity by selecting modern and sleek fonts and a vibrant color palette that not only stands out in the market but also embodies the brand's contemporary and dynamic essence. All these elements, including guidelines on the proper and improper uses of the logo, colors, and fonts, have been compiled into a comprehensive brand style guide. This guide facilitates easy application and consistent use of the new branding identity by our clients.
Colors & Fonts
We selected modern and sleek fonts to craft a sophisticated visual impression that enhances the brand identity, ensuring that every textual element reflects the contemporary and refined ethos of Navi Africa. To further define the brand's distinctive aesthetic, we developed a unique color palette rich in vibrant, intense colors. This choice not only allows the travel concierge app to stand out in a crowded market but also serves to communicate its authenticity and dynamic nature.
Example of use
To provide our client with a comprehensive and realistic view of how the new brand identity could be implemented, we conducted real-life tests by applying the logo to various products. This approach allowed us to demonstrate the versatility and impact of the logo across different merchandise, ensuring that the design resonates well in diverse cases.
UI/UX design
Our team played a key role in redesigning Navi Africa's concierge service app. We began with a detailed audit of the existing app to assess its effectiveness and collect user insights. From there, we developed a new design concept tailored to user needs, incorporating improved flows and functionalities to enhance the user experience. Our goal was to create a sophisticated and stylish look for the app, making it eye-catching and superior in functionality, helping it stand out in the competitive travel app market.
Customer Testimonial
We are super happy with all the deliverables from the team! It was an amazing experience from beginning to end. The team was extremely professional and diligent in all their work. They were also very transparent. (Nishita Devanand)Nishita DevanandFounder & CEO, Navi Africa