We're live! Read the full story behind our new look, website and the brand philosophy that makes us who we are.

Everyone loves a good makeover

Why do you think TV shows like Chip and Joanna Gaines' Fixer Upper average 19 million viewers every week? There’s a magical moment when the before and after of each remodel is shown that makes viewers ooh and aah.

In our case, it’s not a remodel, but a rebrand. There’s something especially exciting about a rebrand because it is much more than a new coat of paint on the walls. It’s a design challenge, a communication challenge, and the start of a new era for our brand.

As a tech company, you might think being trendy and cutting edge comes with owning the product. But even for us, it can be a challenge to keep up with the rapid innovation that takes place in our industry. We believe innovation is key to being proactive to change, so after 10 years of Passare we made a proactive decision to revitalize our brand.

Don’t worry though. Like we always say, change is good. Yes, we’ve re-branded, but the people and mission behind our company are still the same. We’re still under the same ownership and we’re still here to help you improve business processes while creating deeper connections with families. The innovation and growth taking place with our brand will only continue to push us in providing the best service to our industry.

Whether you’ve been with Passare since it’s Silicon Valley days, or you’re brand new - here’s the story behind our new brand.

A funeral home software that can keep up with you, and your families.

Passare has always been unique in the fact that we focus on connecting and collaborating with families. Our new brand resembles our desire to work alongside you, creating new ways to better connect and serve families. We did this with new colors that reflect positive emotions during times of hardship and stress. Easy to view fonts for late night reading and tired, sometimes teary, eyes. A logo reflecting our growth as a company, and our mission to serve the funeral profession. Lastly, a brand logo that speaks to our history, growth and captures some of our best qualities: friendly, approachable and most of all, helpful.

Colors have feelings, too

John Chaka, Director of Design, started to design Passare’s new brand by looking at our colors, how they’re used to communicate our brand, and how they’re viewed by our customers and their families.

When changing each color, a few concerns were taken into consideration. Funeral directors (and families) are often using our software in the middle of the night. And even if it’s the middle of the day, there’s still a good chance of eye fatigue from late nights and increased screen time. Another factor presented itself in emotional stability - often, Passare is being used during times of exhaustion, stress, and sometimes sadness. We wanted our colors to create positive, relaxed feelings to counteract these negative emotions.

One of our main brand colors was orange. Chaka researched what the cognitive effects of the color orange, and how it was processed mentally and emotionally. When processed by our brains, orange is an energetic color accompanied by emotions of anxiety and caution. To create a more relaxing tone, Chaka purified and softened the orange, and then changed it to a cooler tone. The new shade is not only relaxing for the eyes, but it’s positive and calm for the brain. Here at the home office, we call that color ‘Passare Sunrise’.

Chaka continued a similar process when working with the remaining brand colors to create a relaxing and positive color palette. 

The end result? Colors that are easy to view in the middle of the night, and capture positive emotions that are needed during times of exhaustion, sadness, and stress.

A good logo tells a story

When we acquired Passare in 2015, we inherited our current logo. While it’s served us well, we had a desire to create a logo that reflected our new brand, our product, and mission.

The first person John Chaka went to for help when designing our new logo was Merriam Webster. What exactly does Passare mean, anyway? Not to his surprise, Passare wasn’t American lingo. It’s an Italian verb derived from vulgar Latin, passo, meaning to pass. 

After working through an in depth analysis of our name, visual inspiration started to come to life in the words bridge and arch. Through various stages of design, Chaka found a way to embody the concept of a bridge or archway into a new logo mark.

We also wanted our new logo to embody words like empathy, comfort, funeral, or relationships to reflect the emotions of the funeral profession. The design team tested several variations of arch-inspired marks and asked viewers which version communicated these words the best. After many reviews, we found an archway logo that fit exactly what we were looking for. 

After establishing the new mark, Chaka placed it next to our old logo but wasn’t satisfied.

So many tech start-ups from Silicon Valley seem to come with a trendy, all lowercase, style logo. But we couldn’t help feel like that just wasn’t us anymore.

We’ve taken full ownership of Passare, and taken the product to a new level. We’ve created features that serve our customers and their business in the best way possible, and have grown in size and strength as a company. Chaka experimented with fonts and styles to create a logo that captured the growth we’ve achieved over the last 11 years.

And, finally Passare’s new logo was born:

Our new logo.

Words matter

As our design team worked together to create a new design and look, our content team made sure our intentions behind the rebrand would be seen and heard.

The home page of our website used to say “Passare helps funeral professionals and families connect and collaborate anytime, anywhere, using any device.” While this is still very true, we wanted our new brand to emphasize that we can do more than provide cloud-based software, because anyone can do that these days.

We started by listing the main goals we had for our company and product:

• Help funeral directors work together with families to plan the most meaningful services

• Create software that allows funeral directors to manage their funeral home in a way that meets and exceeds business goals

Chris Gomez, Director of Content, took these goals and brainstormed how to best communicate them to everyone who uses Passare and came up with our new slogan:

“Software to help you manage your business and connect with families.”

If you work with us, or if you’re still learning about us, you’ll be hearing this tagline a lot. But, we wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.

Your funeral home business is important to us, which is why we create features to help you streamline business processes, improve staff productivity and meet your goals. Our software helps you do that.

We also want you to not just collaborate with families, but connect with them. We can all agree that meaningful funeral services are created when a personal flair is added. To do this, you have to go beyond getting the job done and get to know each family. We help you do that, too.

Where words meet design

Chaka and Gomez began working to bring our message and design together to create a branding that packed a punch. It was just like watching Chip and Joanna’s master remodels - but better.

Let's take the example of our new business cards: 

When creating new business cards that reflect our new branding, Gomez started by splitting our tagline in two, 'Manage your Business' and 'Connect with Families'. We wanted these on business cards because these are the two things we know funeral homes need. Then Chaka added the design. The new, bright Passare Sunrise emphasized ‘Manage your Business', while a relaxing, calming teal was added to complete our message of connecting with families. But, solid colors weren't quite doing it for us, so Chaka upgraded the finishes by adding a pattern to each business card. The geometric shapes were made from the arch mark next to our logo to create a technological, smart element.

We applied this same strategy when creating each part of our new branding from the website - all the way down to the lanyards we wear at state and national conventions. Each piece ties together to help communicate our brand and our product: software to help you manage your business and connect with families. Software with an innovative, new way of thinking.

This is only the beginning

It’s simply not good business practice to make a change and then stay the same for 10 years. We may have been guilty of this in the past, but not this time. The innovation taking place right now is what we commit to do each day, month and year to bring you the best products and services.

Join us in bringing Passare into the next decade of funeral technology made to manage your business and connect with families.

Have questions about Passare? Schedule a call with one of our account executives to see how you can use our software to streamline business processes and connect with today’s families.