Scott’s Law of Rebrands

Over time, the probability of a rebrand starting in the midst of a large web project approaches 1.

— Scott Boyle, Measured Co-Founder

Like any good axiom, Scott’s Law of Rebrands was borne of experience. We’ve seen it enough that we know it to be truthy. (We call it Scott’s Law with tongue lodged firmly in cheek, of course.)

Rebrands happen for any number of reasons — repositioning in the market, new or evolving contexts, or to breathe new life into a brand. Brand identities tend to last 2 to 5 years, so the odds of a rebrand overlapping a major web project are high — and grow over time.

For our purposes, let’s discuss a rebrand outside the scope of your project, but which will affect it in myriad ways.

Such rebrands are always challenging. But approached the right way, they can bring long-term benefits to your project. Here’s how to go about it.

Accept the cards you’re dealt

A major rebrand will disrupt a large web project running in parallel. Expect questions from your digital teams:

• What’s the scope?
• When’s it starting?
• How long will it take?
• What does it mean for my project?

No one has the answers when a rebrand kicks off. All you know is that it’s happening, you won’t have control over it, and it will take as long as it takes.

Ongoing communication with brand and marketing teams is vital. They’re often siloed from the implementing teams, which adds complexity (although less so for digital brands.)

Make friends. Create lasting feedback loops between brand, marketing and your implementing teams.

Get on the front foot

When you’re surrounded by uncertainty, take it as an opportunity to build something better. Here are three ways to do that.

1. Systematise

Look at what aspects of the existing brand can be systematised. For example:

• Colour schemes and their contextual uses
• Typography (type sizes, typefaces, fallback font stacks)
• Icons (size, location, design descriptors)
• Spacing and alignment (margins, component spacing, vertical rhythm)
• Motion (timing, duration, motion descriptors)

Systematising the brand leads to a more consistent and polished UI.

It also makes the brand easier to understand, which helps to assess the impact of change. You move from the mindset of “there’s so much to do” to “here’s what we’ll do”.

2. Encode the brand

As far as possible, derive variables for what you’ve systematised.

This doesn’t necessarily mean creating design tokens, although it may. The aim is to make it easy to change any aspect of the brand identity. We call this encoding the brand.

Some might say otherwise, but you won’t be able to encode everything up front. New needs will emerge. And some things can’t be made into variables.

Encoding the brand makes your implementation as rebrand-ready as possible, and it simplifies future tweaks.

3. Plan for flux

Brand work, and the digital gubbins around it, is never finished.¹

With robust versioning and good communication, your organisation can safely manage changes to your system.

Label and communicate versions clearly, so everyone can see what’s changed, and make informed decisions about when to adopt. (We recommend Semantic Versioning.)

Call out changes in a visible and timely way.

Be flexible above all

Reality is messy and the future is unknowable. Systematising your brand and planning for change lay the foundations for success.

Seeing rebrands as an opportunity to make your system adaptable saves time and money in the long run.

1. Even when there’s no rebrand happening, people will always tinker. Technology and humanity continually evolve — and so must brands. Duncan Nguyen’s Medium post on the evolution of Apple’s design language captures this well. ↩