On the move: Fold7Design’s revamped identity for car search brand Cazoo is familiar yet fresh

New ownership of Cazoo, one of the biggest household names in car retail in the UK, meant a new look was in order. Before delving into crafting a new image for the brand, the team at brand design studio Fold7Design had many factors to consider, keeping in mind that the company – a previously very well-known brand – was relaunching with a new business model. No longer a direct retailer and instead moving to become a car search platform. This, according to Executive Creative Director Tom Munckton, meant that the brand would be joining a larger competitive landscape. “So we used qualitative research to validate strategic directions, mainly to help us shape a concept that would be needed in the market,” he tells us. “Something that the other players and the category leader were missing. Something that would help us not to merely play into the category norms and continue to behave like a challenger.” ‘Cazoo, Right for You’ became the vehicle that moves the brand away from the competition, who focus on being experts in cars, instead positioning them as experts in ‘you’ first, through helpful lifestyle search filtering. The question was, therefore, how do you signal something ‘new’ and change audience perception while retaining brand equity? To communicate the brand’s business model shift from ‘seller’ to ‘search,’ Fold7Design combined the brand’s car profile ‘A’ letterform (a motif from the previous branding) with a magnifying glass icon, resulting in a simple yet effective symbol. “We amplified it hugely,” notes Executive Creative Director Tom Munckton on the icon’s change. “Through its central role in motion design, to informing a wider icon and UX language, it found purpose.” By being wed to the universal symbol of search (the trusty magnifying glass!) it allowed the brand to hammer home their business model shift. The identity features Cazoo Sans, a tailored version of the open-source typeface Sora. This design aligns more closely with the brand’s aesthetic, enhancing legibility for small-scale UI applications while displaying unique quirks and personality across various weights. Beyond the letterform adjustments, explains Design Director Ben Gibbons, another key aspect of the typeface was the addition of a number of custom glyphs. “Embedding these iconographic glyphs within the core typeset enables their use across the product, website and marketing collateral that the Cazoo team create, without the need for separate icon files,” he notes. “This means our Cazoo Search icon can sit live within a text CTA, and our Cazoo car can be typeset in the middle of a headline at exactly the right proportions.”