Ayer-based North Middlesex Savings Bank has unveiled a new corporate identity, including a new logo and tagline.

The branding initiative, development with Amesbury-based McDougall & Duval Advertising, represents the first time North Middlesex Savings Bank has updated its look since 1989.

“While North Middlesex Savings Bank regularly enhances the products and services we offer customers, we hadn’t updated our own look and feel in several decades,” President and CEO Walter Dwyer said in a statement. “The bank’s leadership team and the board of trustees agreed that the time was right to review our identity and update our brand to ensure that the public recognized us as the modern financial institution we are.”

Prior to developing the new look, North Middlesex Savings Bank conducted an in-depth, brand-positioning study for two months that explored how it was perceived by staff, customers and the communities it serves. McDougall & Duval used those results to help them create the bank’s new tagline, “Smart banking made easy,” as well as its new star-centric logo.

“Like the North Star, NMSB has been a steady beacon to customers and the communities we serve, helping them navigate the economic ups and downs that our region has seen in the past,” Dwyer said in a statement. “Our new logo embraces that role and shows that we will continue that role well into the future.”

The bank will continue to roll out the new branding and marketing look throughout 2013.