Merus: A rebrand for the future that honors the past

Services
Brand Positioning
Visual Expression
Verbal Expression
Guidelines
Campaigns
Website Design & Development

One Design helped the commercial real estate design-build firm Al. Neyer become Merus with a celebrated rebrand, website, and brand launch strategy and campaign, winning over heritage-minded stakeholders, and successfully navigating change management inside and outside the company.

The challenge

Over its 130 years in commercial real estate, Al. Neyer had evolved from a local, family-owned construction business into a national, employee-owned, vertically-integrated development company. But their name, brand, and website were stuck in the past. They needed a new identity and messaging that matched the progressive, multifaceted major player they had become in order to continue to attract the best talent, clients, and partners … all while honoring their 130 years of experience and brand equity.

Together, we developed a new brand positioning, visual and verbal identity, content strategy, website, and brand launch strategy and campaign to tell the right story and set their teams up for success in using and rolling out their new brand.

The Al. Neyer logo in heavy black type next to the Merus logo in a lighter weight, warm red type.
The Al. Neyer logo and the new Merus logo

The insight: Discovery reveals a disconnect

During a brand positioning workshop, we learned that what Al. Neyer’s clients like best about working with them is that in addition to being collaborative and extremely detail-oriented, they are deeply empathetic: they embrace their clients needs as their own, get to know them as people, and proactively think about solutions without ever pushing. These are really smart and driven people, but they’re also kind and warm. In contrast, the look and tone of their brand and website felt templated, cold, and overly-industrial.

Actionable brand positioning recommendations like “lead with plain-spoken language not acronyms and jargon.”
Brand positioning, personality, voice and tone documentation
A dot voting activity where the attributes Dependable, futuristic, dynamic and idealistic were all unanimously selected.
Personality activity from an early team workshop

We created a new brand positioning and personality that captured their true character, and delivered simple instructions on tonal shifts that the Al. Neyer team was immediately able to put into action.

A detail image of a brand guide book, documenting Merus’ brand personality for internal audiences.

The solution: The magic happens in the middle

As an employee-owned company that works in multi-disciplinary teams, everything Al. Neyer does is defined by collaboration and partnership. Their new name, Merus, (created by Lexicon) is a combination of “merit” and “us” that intuitively communicates the company’s heart, soul, and work ethic. And we created an “M” monogram out of two solid shapes that build something stronger together; a symbol of intersection and integration.

130 years of experience and reputation is not something the team wanted to leave behind. So we embraced the color red for continuity, brought architetctural linework into the new brand expression, and created a heritage logo to let even new audiences know that the company has been around since 1894.

Grid overlaying M Logo
The architectural M symbol is paired with a new humanistic wordmark, creating an approachable visual tone.
Construction site signage with new Merus branding
A minimal red and white business card and a formal burgundy folder, embossed with fine lines meeting in the Merus logo.
An electric pickup truck and T shirt featuring Merus logos.
An image of 5 presentation slides, showcasing the application of the new Merus design system to communication design and data visualization.
Merus’ design system extended across all of their communication material

A modern website that works as hard as Merus

Keeping with the empathetic brand positioning strategy, the new Merus website needed an overhaul to serve its audiences better. It needed to tell a clearer story about Merus’ business structure and offerings, create an inroad for subcontractors, and make it easy for the comms team to update the site and create case studies with less content.

We developed a new site powered by the user-friendly Craft CMS, and updated the information architecture, content strategy, and page nomenclature to help audiences find what they’re looking for. New CTAs and a contact form specifically for subcontractors work with—and explain Merus’—subcontractor workflow. We also designed a flexible case study template to accommodate different photo sizes and scale up or down for quick or in-depth case studies.

A scroll through the Merus homepage, highlighting interactions and animations.

The Merus website homepage: it is very clean, graphic and easy to read.

If you’re launching a rebrand you need a plan

A rebrand is a big change. You need to bring leadership along for the journey to ensure you have buy-in. Employees need to understand why it’s happening and be equipped with language and rationale to explain the change to others. Important clients and partners need to know what’s happening before the brand goes live to the public. You have to inform, reassure, and excite every critical audience, and you have to be very thoughtful in how you go about it.

A three minute video revealing the new Merus company name, including testimonial from various team members.

Reveal video by Houston Raef and Brittany Grinham, Brand Advisor

We worked with the Merus team to develop a brand launch strategy and campaign, creating messaging, talking points, brand artifacts, touch points, and timelines for leadership, employees, key external stakeholders, and the public.

Merus logo on a white hard hat, surrounded by painting supplies
Three Merus employees, wearing branded gear

Two of the most impactful touchpoints of the pre-launch campaign included a suite of stakeholder gifts featuring the new branding along with a letter announcing and explaining the name change; and an internal brand launch event that featured a brand reveal video, new swag, and brand positioning collateral to introduce, document, and make actionable the new Merus personality.

Merus brand system grid lines displaying in different colorways
A red name plate in a wood rack shaped like the logo and a modern looking totebag with the logo on it.
A printed timeline of Al. Neyer's history that ends with "today our next chapter begins."
The internal launch event featured a timeline piece that teased the new brand without revealing the name or logo.
Employee welcome kit and handbook and manifesto
An in-airport billboard that reads "the future of Al. Neyer is Merus."
A construction site fence billboard that reads "the future of Al. Neyer is Merus."
An enamel lapel pin in the shape of the Merus logo that comes in two parts like a friendship necklace.
A special edition bourbon bottle with a Merus since 1894 label.
Detail image showcasing the Merus logomark layered on top of a pile of organized business papers.
Tables of new Merus swag including a half zip sweatshirt in a nice box, hardhats, packing tape, and stylish baseball caps.

“It was a special experience working with entire team at One Design. You perfectly captured who we are in words and in visual depiction. It has beat my very highest expectation and no doubt will mark one of the most formative changes we’ve made in our company. Certainly, the name and our brand will fuel us for many years ahead.”


Molly North, CEO Merus


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One Design Company is a research-driven design and development studio. For over a decade, we’ve explored the intersection of experience and technology—where powerful brands come to life. Want to learn more? Let’s chat.

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