Telling a Better Brand Story Gorman & Bunch Orthodontics

We started working with Gorman and Bunch Orthodontics in 2016. At the time, the orthodontic practice had recently enhanced their brand and launched a new website a few months prior. And while we saw many opportunities to upgrade both, we knew it was far too soon to make such recommendations. Fast forward to 2019 and the time had finally arrived to refresh the brand and logo for a website design. Follow along below to see the process we undertook.

In 2018, we worked with Gorman & Bunch Orthodontics on the development of a new brand for The FRINGE — their training event for dentists across Indiana. And in that process, we were able to share with the doctors some shortcomings we saw in their own logo at the time.

First, here’s a look at their old logo:

Lack of Connection

After talking with the doctors, there appeared to be a disconnect between their company culture and their logo. The mission and vision of the company seemed to be softer and more approachable than the mark was demonstrating. Also, at their core, the team of doctors and staff do more than just straighten people’s smiles. They make bigger, longer lasting impacts on their patients’ lives. And the old mark didn’t seem to convey that message to prospective patients.

Lack of Personality

Also, the logo design appeared too corporate and not aligned with the same experience one would encounter upon entering their seven offices. And the letters — G and B — did not clearly display who they were to the community and could stand for a law firm, or an accountant, or a bank. They were stiff, stoic, and didn’t help differentiate this practice from the competition.

Overall, we felt a better story could be told with the overall logo design.

With these pain points in mind, below is the first round of logo concepts we presented to the team of orthodontists:

And from those concepts, the doctors selected the following logo for a few reasons:

1. Better connects with their mission and vision.
2. Shares both the smile and care aspects of their business.
3. Functions well on multiple platforms, including website, social media, t-shirts, etc.
4. Separates them from the competition in terms of quality.
5. Allows the staff to rally around a fun, exciting mark that embodies their unique personality.

With the logo created, we didn’t stop there. We also updated the colors and typefaces to match the brand personality. And then put it all into action by mocking up new pieces of Gorman and Bunch merchandise, including hats, t-shirts, bags, and social media templates.

Once the brand identity was complete, it was time to turn our attention to putting that logo into a new website design. Actually, it was overdue.

Because of years of coding and overcoding within its original WordPress theme, the previous site was temperamental at best — updating one page likely means the breaking of five other pages. More than that, it did not offer a great user experience on mobile devices, which makes up over 70% of Gorman and Bunch web visitors.

Like all of our website redesign projects, we walked the doctors through our discovery questionnaire, exploring the purpose, functionality, and content needs on the new site. Some of the needs that came to surface included:

• Overall site stability — less crashing and more running
• Enhanced mobile aesthetic
• User experience built around patient acquisition
• Better presentation of blog content
• Easy-to-create landing pages and calls-to-action
• Upgraded analytics tracking on the backend
• Chat features and functionality

Here’s a quick glimpse at the finished site, but be sure to visit and experience it for yourself.

And to maintain complete consistency, we also captured new headshots and team shots of the doctors and Gorman and Bunch: