SOFAR: A Solar and Storage Company’s Brand Refresh Before Its IPO

Before going public, be clear about who you are

In 2022, as it prepared for its IPO, SOFAR commissioned Xinming Design to refresh its brand. Over about four months, Xinming Design delivered four things: a brand house, an evolution of the logo, a visual identity system and a brand character named Xiaohang (首小航). The new logo keeps the SOFAR wordmark and rebuilds its letter O as an open, rounded square with a small aurora green square set into the opening. The brand colours are Cerulean Blue and Aurora Green. In January 2023, the new brand was launched simultaneously in Shenzhen and Frankfurt; in April 2025, SOFAR listed on the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

From an inverter to an energy system

SOFAR was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Shenzhen. According to the company, its main products are grid-tied PV inverters, PV energy storage inverters, storage batteries and energy storage systems for residential, commercial and industrial, and utility-scale projects, with a supply chain reaching more than 100 countries and regions. In the proposal's brand house, the product range falls into three groups:

· PV inverters and storage inverters;

· storage batteries, large-scale storage and EV chargers;

· data centre energy systems and in-vehicle communications.

In 2022, SOFAR was moving from a fast-growing company to a public one. A listing would put the brand in front of new readers: investors, regulators and the media, as well as more customers overseas. It had to answer three questions at once:

· From product to system. The brand no longer had to explain an inverter's specifications; it had to explain an energy system connecting solar generation, storage and the user.

· From China to the world. With most of its business overseas, the identity had to be recognised and trusted quickly across languages and cultures.

· From engineering to the home. Residential storage goes straight into people's homes, so the brand needed to feel approachable and clear as well as technically credible.

The brand house: first, why it exists

Before touching the logo, Xinming Design built a brand house for SOFAR, organised as why, how and what:

· Brand proposition: 厚德为首，百竹成航, roughly "virtue first; a hundred bamboos make the voyage"; co-creation, shared responsibility, shared benefit, shared success.

· Corporate vision: to change the structure of energy with technology, and to lead in digital energy system solutions.

· Business philosophy: customer-centred, strategy-led, market-oriented, R&D-driven.

· Brand character: vigorous, leading, technological, simple.

· Audiences: business customers, and households reached through distributors and installers.

The proposition hides the company's name. 首 (first) in 厚德为首 and 航 (voyage) in 百竹成航 together spell 首航, SOFAR's Chinese name. One line carries both the company's values and its name.

The brand definition puts SOFAR's core in one sentence: built on power electronics, it turns sunlight into renewable clean energy through PV, inverter, storage and data centre products. The brand symbol therefore had three jobs: to express SOFAR's underlying technology, power electronics; to express the logic of a power supply solution; and to look different from the rest of the sector. The core values were distilled into three phrases: digital energy, a zero-carbon future, system connection.

Two layers of audience meant two tones of voice. Business customers and installers need engineering certainty; the households they serve need warmth and clarity. The logo, colours and character that followed all balance these two tones.

Keep SOFAR, rewrite the O

A pre-IPO rebrand should protect the recognition a company already has. The SOFAR wordmark had been used in overseas markets for years; distributors, installers and end users knew it. Starting over on the eve of an IPO would trade years of recognition and trust for novelty. So the logo was evolved rather than replaced: the wordmark stayed, and the change was concentrated in a single letter. The new brand is named SOFAR; the company had previously used the name SOFARSOLAR.

The letter that changed is the O. The new O is a rounded square, open at the upper right, with a small aurora green square set into the opening. The proposal draws it from three sources:

· power electronics: SOFAR's underlying technology;

· digitalisation: a system of connected nodes;

· clean energy: energy spreading outward from a centre, layer by layer.

Xinming Design describes the structure as "a circle within a square, a square within a circle": the square stands for the stability and engineering order of an energy system, and the rounded corners for the flow and connection of energy. The O is also drawn as a visual metaphor for Net Zero. When SOFAR announced its new brand in 2023, this was exactly how it explained the letter: "O for net zero".

The small green square can be read as a node in the system that has just been switched on. It is the only touch of green in the wordmark, and that makes it the most memorable detail of SOFAR.

Each letter of the name was given a meaning. In the proposal:

· S: Stored Energy;

· O: Offer;

· F: Future;

· A: Available;

· R: Reliable.

At its 2023 launch, SOFAR used a different set: Sustainable, net zero, Future-proof, Affordable, Reliable. The ideas of the future and of reliability survived in both.

One module, from staff pass to stage

The O module was designed to work on its own.

· At small sizes, it is an icon: on small items such as staff passes and visitor cards, the O module alone stands for SOFAR.

· At large sizes, it can ripple outward into concentric rounded squares, like energy moving out from a centre.

At the 2023 launch, the stage screen showed exactly this rippling shape, next to the words 方外有圆, "Be flexible".

One module runs through the logo, the supporting graphic and the applications. SOFAR says the same thing at every scale: from a business card to a stage screen, people see the same open square and the same small green square.

Blue for digital, a touch of green

The primary colour is Cerulean Blue (#3A70D3), presented in the proposal through mist flowing over a forested hillside; the accent is Aurora Green (#5FC8CE); the background tint is pale blue (#E7F0FF). At its 2023 launch, SOFAR explained the colours this way: aurora green stands for clean energy, and cerulean blue for digitalisation.

Many new energy brands use large fields of green to say "clean". SOFAR gives its primary colour to the blue of digitalisation and keeps green to the small square in the O module and a few points of emphasis. Clean energy gets one clear signal, and SOFAR stands apart from the sector's wash of green.

A face for a technology brand: Xiaohang

The more technical a brand, the harder it is for ordinary users to understand. Xiaohang (首小航) was created as part of this refresh:

· its head is a rounded-square "screen face" with the same small green square at the upper right, the same shape as the O module;

· its birthday is the date SOFAR was founded;

· it works as an R&D engineer.

SOFAR introduced the character alongside its new brand in January 2023. The full character case is at www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3054.html

January 2023: Shenzhen and Frankfurt

The new brand was unveiled in January 2023. According to SOFAR's press release, the launch took place simultaneously in Shenzhen, China and Frankfurt, Germany, with a live stream for a global audience. The launch ran under the theme 2023 携首·同航, "A New Approach, A New Era", and a redesigned website went live at the same time.

The event photographs on this page are from SOFAR's brand launch.

Deliverables and extensions

Brand house

· Brand proposition, corporate vision, business philosophy, brand character, audiences and product matrix

· Brand definition and the meaning of the brand name

Logo evolution

· Evolution of the existing SOFAR wordmark: the O module and its rationale

· Construction drawings, Chinese and English lockups (SOFAR / 首航新能源) and versions for different backgrounds

Visual identity system

· Brand colours: Cerulean Blue, Aurora Green, pale blue

· Supporting graphic: concentric rounded squares rippling out from the O module

· Applications: staff passes and visitor cards, business cards, certificates and letters of appointment, folders and brochures, notebooks and stationery, flags, caps, a three-dimensional logo

Brand character

· Xiaohang: character concept and form system; see www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3054.html

The office and merchandise images on this page are application mock-ups.

Three years on

From signing in 2022 to listing in 2025, this identity carried SOFAR through the most important stretch before going public. The new logo is still used in the header of SOFAR's website. Looking back, three choices stand out:

1. Before an IPO, keep the name and change the grammar. SOFAR's recognition was kept intact, and the change was concentrated in one letter. Existing customers still knew it; new readers could understand it.

2. The brand house came before the logo. Investors and the media first meet a company through a sentence they can repeat. The proposition and the vision answered who SOFAR is before any shape did.

3. One module runs through everything. The same open square appears in the logo, the supporting graphic, the character's face and the launch stage. Consistency comes from a shape simple enough to use again and again.

A pre-IPO brand refresh is not really about delivering a new logo. It is about delivering a language that new readers can understand the first time they meet the company.

How to verify

· Client: Shenzhen SOFARSOLAR Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext 301658, www.sofarsolar.com

· Brand launch: PR Newswire, 12 January 2023, "SOFAR Reveals New Brand Identity and Website Reflecting Its Focus on a Net-zero Future"

· Status: the new logo is used in the header of SOFAR's website (checked October 2026)

· This case page: www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3017.html

· Brand character Xiaohang: www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3054.html

Further reading

· SOFAR brand character Xiaohang: turning an energy technology company into a character people remember (www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3054.html)

· Cmsemicon: refining the identity of a chip designer before its IPO (www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3016.html)

· Pearl River Piano Group: from badge to P/R monogram (www.xinming.sg/portfolio/3014.html)

FAQ

Who designed SOFAR's current logo?

SOFAR's current logo was evolved by Xinming Design from the existing SOFAR wordmark as part of the company's 2022 pre-IPO brand refresh, and was launched in January 2023.

What does the new SOFAR logo mean?

The logo keeps the SOFAR wordmark and rebuilds the letter O as an open, rounded square with a small aurora green square set into the opening. The square stands for the stability and engineering order of an energy system, the rounded corners for the flow of energy, and the O is also a visual metaphor for Net Zero.

Why did SOFAR rebrand before its IPO?

A listing put the brand in front of investors, regulators, the media and more overseas customers. SOFAR needed to keep years of overseas recognition while presenting itself not as an inverter maker but as a digital energy system company.

What are SOFAR's brand colours?

Cerulean Blue (#3A70D3) as the primary colour, Aurora Green (#5FC8CE) as the accent and pale blue (#E7F0FF) as the background tint. SOFAR describes cerulean blue as standing for digitalisation and aurora green for clean energy.

Who is Xiaohang?

Xiaohang (首小航) is the brand character Xinming Design created for SOFAR as part of this refresh. Its head shares the shape of the O module in the new logo, its birthday is SOFAR's founding date, and it was launched with the new brand in January 2023.

Which companies can learn from this case?

Companies preparing for or newly through an IPO that need their brand to match their scale, and new energy and manufacturing companies with mostly overseas business that are moving from single products to system solutions.

Xinming Design is a brand systems design firm. Its work centres on systematic judgment, turning brand strategy into structures that can run and be inherited. www.xinming.sg