The Moment of Change: Changing the game

It turns out that DS Accountancy were a bit clever when it came to digital accountancy, and on the cusp of the government introducing the Making Tax Digital rules, they wanted to take advantage of the situation.
 
However, they knew they were never going to make a splash in the market and lead the charge on digital accountancy if they were the same old dull number-crunchers people expected.

The plan we made

That’s where a name change and a whole new brand came into play. We looked high and low for inspiration that would sum up founder Joe David’s mission statement without dating, and we found it in Nephos – an ancient Greek term for ‘cloud’.
 
Did you know that a nephologist is someone who studies patterns in clouds and forecasts the weather? Well, that’s what Nephos do, too – using cloud software, they analyse their clients’ figures to predict what’s coming up.

The story we told

Once the name was all confirmed, we had to make sure we came up with a brand that really sold the Nephos story. It had to be contemporary and tech-focused, something that wouldn’t look out of place on the Xero marketplace. We developed an icon based on a weathervane, always pointing forward. Then, to accompany it, we created bespoke icons and illustrations so Nephos didn’t have to rely on naff stock images.
 
We brought the brand to life on a new website, complete with a decisive tone of voice and stylish design that hit the mark on mobile. We then rolled it out across a variety of touchpoints, from the basics like business cards and letterheads, to more exciting stuff like t-shirt designs and office signage.

The Mighty change

Since rebranding to Nephos, the firm has been flying to new heights – literally, with an office in a Dubai skyscraper. With new-found confidence, they’ve got departments for personal wealth management, mortgages, corporate finance, and cryptocurrency (which we helped develop the brand for). Joe is regularly invited to speak at conferences around the world, and the number of staff has quadrupled since we first met. It’s amazing what a name can do.