BB Agency’s rebrand for Pilot44 presents them as the ‘architects for growth’ every company needs

As a brand innovation and venture-building studio, Pilot44 helps new brands, products and businesses take off while assisting existing ones to shift gears and grow. With a “battle-tested team of entrepreneurs and technologists,” they spot emerging trends and identify new growth opportunities. The company needed a revamp that would encapsulate its distinctive strength as both an expert and an innovator, and so it collaborated with BB Agency, who positioned them as the ‘Architects for Growth.’

This idea of Pilott44 being ‘the builders’ who help brands expand their potential and businesses shaped everything during the rebrand – from the company’s tone of voice to the identity and its many elements, such as the typography and the colour palette.

“During our communication strategy and research phase, phrases like “being hands-on,” “having a builder’s mentality,” and “being the architects of growth” were frequently mentioned by the founders,” Brand Design Team Lead Vicente Reyes Montealegre tells us. “We aimed to create an identity that resembled an architectural magazine – structured, intellectual and sophisticated – while maintaining a connection to a hands-on approach. Unlike other innovation consultancies that often rely too much on highbrow, abstract language and visuals, we wanted a more tangible and grounded look and feel.”

For the custom wordmark, the team wanted to riff on the idea of a “builder or an architect,” and gravitated towards stencil typefaces, commonly seen on construction sites. “This led us to create heavy, blocky geometric letters that could almost resemble a building,” Montealegre adds. The team experimented with the positioning of the number 44 and decided to use it as a superscript, “giving it a mathematical potency that emphasises the analytical aspect of the brand,” he says.

“This approach also allowed us to create an abbreviated wordmark, ‘P44,’ where the strokes align perfectly.” The architectural aesthetic guided the choice of the typefaces as well, leading BB Agency to Radio Grotesk, which brings a sense of rationality, and IBM Plex Mono, the technicality of which evokes elements of architectural plans and documents.

The diagrammatic treatment of the illustrations also leaned into the central concept, underscoring the logical nature of the company’s work, as does the hero hue. “We took the “builder’s mentality” from the communication strategy quite literally and selected a shade of yellow similar to what you’d see on high-visibility jackets,” Montealegre explains. “Paired with warm grey tones and high-contrast white and black, we crafted a palette that directly relates to the central idea that holds the rebrand, while delivering a brand that appears modern and futuristic.”