VIA CNC, a Sheffield based company, specialise in selling heavy duty machinery, specifically CNC lathes. Around Summer 2011, VIA decided to refresh its identity and position in the market. This involved a change in the name of the business from VIA TURN to VIA CNC and meant re-designing everything from stationery to the website and of course the brand itself.
The brief was to create a new and refreshed brand which reflected the strength of the products sold. Managing Director James Kierney wanted to take a cleaner approach compared to the old branding (see the old website and branding below), whilst keeping the signature orange and black which has become ingrained in the identity. He also wanted me to design a website which was bold but very simple to navigate as his current site had become cluttered and confusing.
When designing the logo, I explored various different ideas from very clean and crisp logo type, to more elaborate design's with heavy logo's and type weights to show strength and power in both the brand and the products on offer. After sketching up some ideas, I moved on illustrator and started to mock up some early concepts, some of which you can see below.
Once I had sat down with James and nailed down which design's he liked and didn't like, I refined the design until we created a mark that represented the company values best whilst being strong and rememberable. The logo mark itself (see below) took inspiration from the movement of the lathes, with angle of the A also taking inspiration from some of the striking shapes. Something that James made clear early one was that he wanted to be able to apply the logo to other areas of the business for example VIAMachinery, VIATooling etc. This change in typeface on CNC allows the logo to be adaptable for other areas of the business.
After the logo was approved, I went ahead with designing the stationery, company brochure and also the website to follow with the branding. The results of which you can see below.
Since finishing the design work, the website is now in the process of being developed, however you can see VIA's current site here. Any comments or thoughts? Give me a shout on twitter, feedback is always appreciated!