Brief
NovusQuo is a new financial solutions business created to challenge conventional thinking around equity investing.
Its founders had developed a new approach designed to give investors access to opportunities not available through conventional investment structures. With a sophisticated proposition and ambitions to operate across international markets, they needed a brand that could clearly communicate what was different while establishing credibility from the outset.
Creatik was engaged to develop the brand from the ground up, beginning with strategy and positioning before moving into company and product naming, visual identity, website and communications. The work needed to establish a strong foundation for a new business entering a market where innovation is important, but trust is essential.
Challenge
The central challenge was finding the right balance between disruption and credibility.
NovusQuo was entering the market with a proposition designed to challenge established approaches to equity investing, so creating another conservative financial services brand would have worked against the business itself. At the same time, being different for the sake of it risked making a new and unfamiliar proposition feel experimental.
This was particularly important given the audience. The business was targeting wholesale and institutional investors, with plans to operate across Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. The brand needed to feel innovative and progressive, but also intelligent, sophisticated and assured.
There was also complexity in the proposition itself. Part of our role was to make the business easier to understand without oversimplifying the thinking behind it.
Solution
Our strategy work included competitor analysis, brand discovery and founder interviews to understand both the commercial proposition and what the founders wanted to change within the category.
This led to the positioning Disrupt. Transform. Lead. and the brand essence New thinking. New futures., establishing a clear direction for a business that wanted to challenge established thinking while maintaining the rigour expected in financial services.
That thinking informed the naming process. NovusQuo is a play on status quo, reflecting the ambition to challenge conventional approaches to equity investing and create something new. The name gave the business a distinctive point of view without losing the sophistication required for an institutional audience.
The visual identity builds on the same balance. The bespoke wordmark uses smooth, uniform forms and generous spacing to create a sense of precision and calm, while the way those forms are stacked, separated and broken apart introduces an element of disruption.
The palette combines deep green, bringing stability and trust, with a brighter green that adds energy and progress. Landsat satellite imagery moves away from familiar financial services imagery and gives the brand a more distinctive visual language. Seen at different scales, the imagery reveals patterns, systems and details, reflecting NovusQuo's approach to understanding the broader market while identifying opportunities within it.
The finished brand gives NovusQuo a clear and credible platform to take a genuinely different proposition to market. Strategy, naming and identity all come from the same central idea, helping make a complex business easier to understand while giving it enough distinction to stand apart in the category.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Creatik took the time to properly understand our business, what we were trying to achieve and, importantly, what we wanted to do differently in the market. They were able to take what is a relatively complex proposition and turn it into a clear, credible and distinctive brand.
The NovusQuo name was a standout for us. The play on ‘status quo’ captured our aim of challenging conventional thinking around equity investing and creating something genuinely different. At the same time, the NovusQuo name still feels sophisticated and credible, which is particularly important in financial services.
The broader identity has brought that thinking to life extremely well. It gives us a brand that feels contemporary and innovative but still has the confidence and credibility we need as we take NovusQuo to market."
JAMES PANARETOS
Head of Distribution, NovusQuo
Strategy to launch
Positioning, naming, identity, digital and communications.
A name with a point of view
NovusQuo turns the familiar idea of the status quo into an expression of the business's ambition to challenge conventional thinking.
Complex made clear
A sophisticated investment proposition translated into a clear, credible and distinctive brand.
Built for global ambition
Created for a sophisticated financial audience across multiple international markets.
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