Corporate ID - Paul Bateman Earthmoving
My client based corporate identity project was on a local Earthmoving Company (that just changed their name last week so that was a little frustrating to hear). The business "was" called Paul Bateman Earthmoving and they specialise in Earthmoving Equipment.
The first thing I did before even calling them was just trying to familiarise myself just a little on what companies like this do and it is a pretty straight forward business which made it easy.
The first time I contacted Paul (September 16th, due to mix up with first client) was just to ask him if it was alright to centre my assessment around his business. The current image of the company was basically no existent apart from a very sloppy sign made by a signwriter so I thought they could really use a new look. During this first call I made sure to state he didn't have to use the work so there was no pressure on his end. He sent me an example of their current stationary which also helped me understand what he would not want. Even though Paul was fine with the stationary even he admitted it could be better. The colours were to stay the same though (Dark Blue, Orange/Yellow and White). Some key questions I asked during this first call were:
How do you want your business to be perceived?
Is your current image working?
Who is your target audience?
What do you want to avoid? And what don't you want?
(And also a few other questions I didn't remember to write down!)
After the first call/email I went away to develop a few ideas from what I already knew about the business. Earthmoving equipment is very dull to most people so I thought to keep it along the lines of a "John Deere" approach and just centre everything around the colours and badge. Most of my concepts were really bold and bright which turned out too be too "intense" for Paul in his next email (25th September). So I immediately went away and made the most simple logos possible, almost embarrassingly simple to try out a technique I like using. This technique is just something I like to do after someone wants a simple idea. By making it really boring and simplistic you can really encourage someone to agree with you to add some flare. It may backfire though and could result in losing a client but since he wasn't paying me I thought it was a chance I could afford to take. After he agreed with my opinion (30th September) - it was a great outcome because it let me give the client what I thought was a better option.
Once the logo and basic style was agreed on I asked Paul which marketing materials he would prefer. There was the basic stationary of course and discussion of a poster. I pointed out to Paul that an Ad in the newspaper may be more beneficial due to his target audience who wouldn't really bother with a poster. After we agreed on this he mentioned that he was thinking of getting a website put together so I thought I could do a mock up of that as well.
The website was really simple because Paul had been looking at a rival companies website and really just wanted to follow that structure. I manipulated as much as I could without losing the basic frame of the site. I made sure to keep key elements from the stationary I had designed involved with the website.
The newspaper ad was meant to be very straight forward and to the point. With ads in the newspaper the first few seconds are your only chance to grab attention so I used a heavy dose of colour with bullet points. There is no need for anything else distracting the reader. Again the reason for the newspaper ad would be for somewhere like The Leader - really targeting his audience.
Once I finally got all of the agreed items together I sent Paul an email (23rd October) and waited over the weekend for a response. It was a very successful outcome because Paul thought it all looked "fantastic" which made me happy. Although this changed last week when he changed his business name so he won't be using the material but said if his "new" company needs an ID, he would give me a call. So in the end it worked out alright and I got some more experience dealing with clients.
My client was really good because I kept all phone calls very brief (2-3 minutes if possible) and didn't bother him too much and just listened to his suggestions. I feel you don't need to constantly go back and forth if you listen the first time that really helps make it a lot easier. But I think it was good mostly having to do with the fact I had a good client for this project.
My final items were:
Logo
Business Card
Letterhead
Newspaper Ad
Website
