Cal Laboratory: Clinical Diagnostic Service

Cal Laboratory is a clinical diagnostic service that works with medical professionals to collect, analyze, and deliver results from three different kinds of tests: toxicology, blood, and pharmacogenomics. They help physicians provide the best treatment to their patients. The difference between Cal and similar companies is their people. In Cal’s line of work, it’s easy to reduce people to numbers, but Cal has a vested interest in the people they serve and the people they hire. Their approach doesn’t pit personality against data – it combines them. The real challenge in this project was using the existing Cal Laboratory identity to its advantage: refreshing, not rebranding.

We built a visual and verbal identity that matched this unique company’s spirit. The first element to resolve was the name. Cal Laboratory was originally called the Compliance Advantage Laboratory. Then, it became CAL Laboratory, or Compliance Advantage Laboratory Laboratory. Faced with a redundant acronym that read as a name and spoke as a non-percussive, atonal string of letters, we couldn’t burn the whole thing down because of their close relationships with their clients. We decided to shift their name to Cal Laboratory. Embrace the personality there, lean into its implicit personification, and drop the acronym altogether. The primary tagline, People-inspired Technology, reinforces that personality, serves as the anchoring point for the verbal foundation language, and carries through in the photography style throughout marketing materials. In addition, we stripped the original mark of its explicitly scientific iconography (the atom) and isolated the quadrupoles. The quadrupoles are a subtle nod to Cal’s work and history. The result is a brand identity enhances and evolves Cal Laboratory, taking this cutting-edge work into a new era.

Scope of Work
Brand Strategy
Brand Identity
Brand Guidelines
Brand Language
Website Design