In February, the UK-based investment company Standard Life Aberdeen announced it would rebrand itself, abandoning use of the “Standard Life” name. Recently, Britain’s largest active asset manager has unveiled its new name and visual identity.
The rebranding is connected with the fact that the business sold its insurance branch inherited from Standard Life company which merged with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017, launching SLA.
So, ditching the “Standard Life”, the company has presented its new name with quite an unusual spelling – Abrdn. While it should still be pronounced “Aberdeen”, such an unconventional solution has to symbolize a “modern, agile and digitally-enabled brand”. The name-shortening idea and the brand look of Abrdn was developed by the international brand consultancy Wolff Olins.
According to Abrdn, its visual identity has to reflect the company’s new business strategy and structure including investments, personal finance and advisory technical platforms.
Abrdn’s digital concept is also supported by it logo which represents a lower-cased “a” made up of dots. It is accompanied by the “abrdn” wordmark distinguished with curved strokes. Stephen Bird, the company’s CEO, described the new brand as dynamic and modern as it shows off a highly differentiated design giving Abrdn a unique individuality.