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(770) 500-3473 | info@ssusa.co

The New SharpShooters USA Visual Brand

When we took over ownership of SharpShooters back in January, one of the first things we wanted to firmly establish was the SharpShooters brand. We knew we wanted to keep the name. That was easy. But for the visual brand, we wanted to give it a refresh. As we looked at the history of the company, we began to dig into what exactly there could be to visually represent the SharpShooters brand and our core values: clean, family friendly, knowledgeable.

What is a SharpShooter?

We started with the word “sharpshooter”. It’s a US Army designation, a badge, a medal that army soldiers can achieve. The original sharpshooter badge was one of 4 badges that a soldier could earn: rifle, marksman, sharpshooter, and expert. That’s where we started: the original Sharpshooter brand. We knew we couldn’t just use that actual mark (it kinda belongs to the US Army), but we wanted to hold on to some of that heritage.

The original US Army Sharpshooter brand mark was a badge, earned by soldiers.

So we started looking at everything we had — all our physical assets as a shooting range — when the folks at Syrup came across this picture that I had taken for a simple instagram post. When they saw the clean, empty range with its symmetrical lines, they were like, “oh, wait, visually, that’s the same shape and imagery as the sharpshooter badge!”

The SharpShooters Range was one of two images used to create the new visual brand.

It all started to become clear from that point. We looked at a few other concepts, but when this brand mark came to life, there was no doubt about it. 

SharpShooters USA Was Founded in 2011

The first draft of the new brand logo mark concept was created in black & white, so now it was time for the colors. Again, looking at our 10 year history, we wanted to honor the history of the organization, the facility, the community, so we kept the red and the black from the original logo. We did end up with a shade of blue, but it’s much different than the blue in the previous logo.

The SharpShooters USA logo mark is the core mark in the SharpShooters USA visual brand.

So this is our new logo mark. I absolutely love it. It’s bold, distinguished, unique, flexible, but most of all, it really reflects our values: clean, family friendly, knowledgeable.’

Brand Value 1: Clean

That’s the first comment most new visitors to SharpShooters make: “Wow, it’s so clean.” That alone makes a huge difference to your experience. We clean our range every single day. At night, we sweep up the brass. In the morning, we sweep the entire range, wipe down all the booth stands, and clean all the glass. Once a week, we vacuum every inch. Meanwhile, our air filtration system moves the air at 75FPM (cubic feet per minute), recycling all the air in the range every 90 seconds. That keeps the lead out of the air, and out of you.

Our retail store is clean and well lighted. Again, that alone would make our facility stand out among gun stores and ranges.

Brand Value 2: Family Friendly

OK, “clean” is easy. But how can a logo mark be “family friendly”? Well, when we think “family friendly,” we think of the traditional “gun store”. You know the one. It’s dingy, dark, a little smelly, and the guy behind the counter knows more than you, and makes sure you know that he knows more than you. He’s intimidating. The whole place is intimidating, so gun newbies usually just don’t go in. We think of everything about that experience.

Then we do the exact opposite. We are intentional about NOT being intimidating. We want everyone – men, women, and their families – to be comfortable coming into SharpShooters and enjoying their time here. We want to meet you at your level of knowledge of firearms, not ours. This new logo is not intimidating, and therefore, while we’re biased, we think it’s family friendly.

Brand Value 3: Knowledgeable

For “knowledgeable”, my mind goes immediately to the history of the emblem, the US Army Sharpshooter. We didn’t just pick some random shape. We researched where the name and emblem came from, and that’s consistent with how our staff is fanatical about knowing everything about the merchandise we sell and – more importantly – how to use it properly. A US Army SharpShooter wouldn’t earn that medal without thorough knowledge of his firearms. Whether you’re a Marine Sniper or you’ve never held a pistol before, someone on our staff can have a conversation with you that you’ll enjoy and remember.

SharpShooters USA

We didn’t change the name. We are SharpShooters USA. We don’t use the “USA” in every version of the logo or in small talk. We just say, “SharpShooters.” And that shade of blue we pulled in? That completes the red, white, and blue of SharpShooters USA. We are proud Americans, proud patriots, and proud supporters of the United States Constitution and its 2nd Amendment.

The SharpShooters USA brand wide word mark with stars and stripes.

So this is our new visual brand. I hope you like it as much as we do.

3 thoughts on “The New SharpShooters USA Visual Brand”

  1. The more I learn about SharpShooters the more I’m convinced I made the right decision to become a member. It’s an organization that truly feels like family.

    Reply
    • WOW! Thank you so much! I could just erase everything I wrote about our brand and publish this as our “here’s what we wanna be!” statement. Thank you a thousand times over. Thank you.

      Reply
  2. All done well… the research, the alignment, the value system, the focus, the concept, the execution, the priorities, and the reality that is Sharpshooters USA.

    Keep up the great work, Kevin and team!

    Reply

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