TORONTO—Local agency Archerfish has recently rebranded and renamed its design agency. Archerfish partner and creative director Jennifer Mercer says talk of rebranding the company from Switch Design Lab started last spring, in the midst of the first recession the company has encountered.



“We are a fairly young company,” says Mercer. “We started in 2003, so we missed the recession in 2002. Last year came as a bit of a shock to us, the fragility of the economy caused us to do some soul searching.” The company conducted anonymous interviews with its clients and found the brand was sending out mixed messages. “A lot of clients felt that we were perhaps too limited,” she says. “Other clients felt like we were more marketing based than design. It was obvious through the interview process that we needed to do a complete overhaul of the brand.”

The name Archerfish was chosen to represent the differences between the partners in the company, Mercer and Bobby Murbah. “Bobby is more of the designer and I work as the writer and art director,” says Mercer. “People think it is funny that a writer and designer can work together without killing each other. But it works and we can offer well-rounded creative because we are constantly working together.”

Archer represents Murbah, who can see the end goal from the first concept meeting, says Mercer, who is represented by the fish, delving deeper into the process before arriving at an end result. “The logo focuses on a simple typographic treatment,” she says. “The clean typeface also contains a clever symbol between the F and the I which suggests both the archers aim and the healthy, creative appetite of the fish.”

Mercer says Switch Design Lab’s logo was a bit more linear than the work they wanted to create. “The new brand represents [our] creativity a little more,” she says. Contact: Archerfishstudio.com