SCY is a strength, conditioning, and yoga app for runners founded by record-breaking professional ultra runner and 50km World Champion, Carla Molinaro.
Carla came to us because she felt that SCY needed a refreshed look. She wanted to bring more fun and personality to the brand and use more of the amazing imagery she shot regularly with her photographer friends. She also wanted to grow SCY and invest more in the community that was naturally beginning to grow around the brand.
As a runner, Carla’s first priority is getting out on the road (or trails). Marketing has never been her big focus or passion so she wasn’t sure where to start. We encouraged her to start at the very beginning – with a brand strategy that we could build out into a complete brand.
Brand Strategy & Messaging
SCY’s strategy hinges on the concept of the runner’s high: an unbeatable feeling you get from running. In this case, however, the runner’s high is more like a ‘Hi 👋’ from a fellow runner and the concept of being part of a community that lifts each other up.
After a careful look at the training app industry and Carla’s competition, we settled on the position: ‘For runners’. SCY is set apart by the fact that it isn’t a running plan. It’s a strength, conditioning, and yoga plan designed especially for runners who want to spend less time on a yoga mat and more time on the road.
The uplifting, witty, and candid brand tone fits naturally with Carla’s firecracker personality which she shares with her big following on Instagram.
Brand Identity Development
Carla came to us wanting a brand to match her personality. She shares a fair bit of her life across her social media which was the source of our visual inspiration – starting with colour. We put together a colour palette that was a visual nod to Carla’s fashion and interior aesthetic.
With the soft, feminine colour palette to play off of, we knew we needed to add some grit so we created a bold, sporty wordmark. This, along with geometric and monospaced typefaces communicates the brand’s duality; Carla (and the business she has built) is strong, fast AND bubbly & friendly.
Her business consists of two arms: her coaching and her strength and conditioning app so we had to build a logo system that consisted of two different logos that spoke to each other. The Carla Molinaro brand uses similar letterforms and type applications but pulls back on bright colours to speak to a more serious audience.
Collateral: Socials and Stickers
SCY is a brand that lives on social media platforms, mostly Instagram. Because this is where the community hangs out, it was important to create templates for Carla’s frequent posts and stories.
In addition to this, we created fun, colourful stickers to be used across brand material to add a playful quality. Iconography forms an essential part of the visual identity and these simple illustrations and typographic designs act as signature accents and symbols to extend the visual language of the brand.
Carla loved the stickers and wanted to see them out in the world so we also created a fun and colourful sticker sheet that she could hand out to draw new customers in.
Website Design & Copy
The next step was bringing it all together on the public-facing website. When we’ve put as much effort into the strategy, messaging, and visual guidelines as we had for this project, the finished website comes together with ease.
The finished website files were handed over to Carla’s developer who updated the website and app accordingly. You can see the finished website here.
Runners Creating a Brand for Runners
As a team made up of runners, we jumped (or sprinted) at the chance to work with Carla. Understanding the brand meant Rich got to test a few at-home workouts and Tam and Em tested one of Carla’s hill workouts. Working on a business that resonates so much with our team and their most loved hobby was as inspiring as it was rewarding.
While the project is over, we’re still very much in Carla’s corner. With the new website and fresh branding live and kicking, Carla and Robyn occasionally met for a marketing strategy call. These calls aimed to keep Carla on track to grow her small business with consistent strategies that work.
We’re so excited to have played our small part in SCY and will continue to cheer Carla on as she grows her community of runners who bask in the joy of the Runners ‘Hi 👋’.