Calvert Street Investment Partners
Corporate Rebranding & Website Design for Private Equity Businesses
Time to Rebrand
For nearly three decades, the private equity firm Calvert Street Investment Partners has been building and growing companies in the lower middle market. Founded in 1995, Calvert Street’s investment strategy focused on equity buyout investments. In 2019 Parkway Capital, which focuses on mezzanine debt and minority equity investments, joined Calvert Street. Together, the combined firm offers investment opportunities in the lower middle market through two complementary investment strategies.
Following the merger, Parkway Capital retained its name, yet both firms shared a single website. The lack of a clear brand strategy for the combined firm created confusion in the marketplace for investors, owners and intermediaries.
The Brand Strategy
EffectiV recommended that both private equity firms should be organized under a single, unifying parent entity. This led to the establishment of Calvert Street Investment Partners as the overarching firm, adopting a name that pays homage to the legacy of Calvert Street Capital Partners.
This strategic architecture preserves and even amplifies the most valuable brand assets from the original entity, and enables a seamless integration of those brand assets across all three businesses.
To reinforce this integration, distinct identities that share a unifying brand aesthetic were meticulously crafted for the parent firm and its two investment strategies.
Identity, Identity, Identity
The Branding Thread
A common ‘branding thread’ is present in all three websites to create a visual commonality. These visual cues allow the underlying businesses to capitalize on the success and established trust achieved over the 23 years of Calvert Street Capital’s experience.
Crescentia Capital
EffectiV provided a framework and ongoing guidance to assist in the selection of a new name for the equity buyout business. Once the new name, Crescentia Capital, was selected, EffectiV helped craft a narrative which provides an historical context rooted in the history of Maryland.
Private Equity Website Design
Calvert Street Investment Partners
As the corporate parent, the Calvert Street website establishes one of the core image themes, which is woven across all three websites. Keying on the names of the two original firms, we incorporated roads and highways to evoke the concept of journey and establish an immediate visual presentation of a clear pathway amidst a modern city skyline. The homepage features aerial video footage shot by a drone from the iconic perspective of i-395 as you enter the city of Baltimore.
Crescentia Capital
The Crescentia Capital design employs a clean and modern aesthetic that uses light, neutral tones to establish a minimalist backdrop. This contrasts with the orange from the firm’s color palette, which injects bursts of energy. It features a beautiful shot of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge image, which is used to introduce the bright orange as it seamlessly continues as the backdrop for the opening portion of the page. The overall balance provides a vibrant and sophisticated feel.
Parkway Capital
The Parkway design is anchored by a modern and simple presentation that uses negative space to capture visual attention. It incorporates a subtle line art trace of the visual mark from the logo to help guide attention to the tag line. The site incorporates imagery that evokes action and movement, accented with bright colors from the new color palette.
