Anchor

Harbor engaged WMT to give the Anchor brand and platform a complete refresh. With a target audience encompassing everyone from film studio heads to post-production assistants, they sought a brand that resonated with both the head and the heart, the technical and the emotional. And they needed a platform which answered its users' call for simplicity, elegance and dynamism.

Our research uncovered the Harbor Picture Company’s philosophy that film is the most direct expression of collective creative joy, and nothing should get in its way. An all-embracing space that balances the flow of mixed emotions and workstreams. So they needed a strategic position that created room for this.

We hit upon an idea we called Expansive Clarity. Filmmaking is inspirational, aspirational and liberating. Anchor may be a digital tool for the technical world of film and advertising, but they are all about positive, human, creative experiences. People supporting people.

Anchor open up the conditions necessary for pure creativity, where multiple disciplines can realise their vision - big or small - from a single, extensive and secure source of truth.

The strategic position of expansive clarity called for brand imagery that truly lived up to the core values we developed for the brand: Unlimited Scaleability, Unimpeded Collaboration and the Ultimate Expressions of Art. We combined ethereal landscapes with black-and-white imagery to create a world where the ideas of pure creativity, collation and collaboration are reinforced.

Whilst the brief was to create an identity that could live on its own in the spacious world of ‘expansive clarity’ we created, we also needed a nod to the Harbor Picture Company, the creators of the Anchor platform.

We replicated the distinctive A shape from the Harbor logo to do this, using Dazzed Bold - a cinematic sans-serif typeface - and adding a loading animation in the A to reference the agility, speed and functionality of the Anchor platform.

We paired this logo and hero typeface with Domaine Text, ‘a sharp, elegant serif with curvaceous Latin detailing’ to give contrast to the weight and power of Dazzed.

We designed two platforms, a full-feature desktop version and a simpler IOS app for mobile and tablet.