Salix are the UK’s largest producer of native wetland plants and integrate Ecology and Civil Engineering to provide “Ecological Engineering” systems. VGroup were approached by Salix to re-fresh their brand identity and subsequently to roll out their new image across all communications materials including stationery, company brochures and website. In addition to this, we will be working with them to develop a truly integrated approach to their marketing communications over the coming year. Although we’ll be showing you more of this over the coming months, we’d thought you’d like to see how we ‘evolved’ their logo – the first stage of the brand re-fresh.
Firstly, as you can see in the old logo the symbol used to be the dominant feature. For legibility issues, as well as ensuring the new logo reproduced clearly on various applications from livery to letterheads, we reversed the dominance, making the wordmark larger than the symbol. Also, to help the balance we crafted the wordmark in a cleaner, bolder and fresher typeface. We removed other visual clutter, such as the illustrative grasses, replacing them with the introduction of green to the brand colour palette instead. The well-recognised s-shaped river symbol was redrawn in a softer circle, harmonising with the new typeface.
Salix also required a new strapline which represented all areas of their business, and “Eco Engineering” was a perfect way to simply and clearly communicate what they do.
As well as the new logo, a new visual identity has been created to complete the brand. Fluid, organic shapes representing water, landscape, environment and growth will be adapted to be used across the new collateral. They will also be used as placeholders to showcase various Salix projects and images.
With the new logo and visual identity approved, we have also completed the important scoping phase for the website. As Salix offer a vast array of products and services, it was vital to firstly complete an extensive audit of their old site to restructure the content for optimum usability and search. As well as the design and build phases for the website, we will also shortly be commencing with the marketing collateral, which as a complete package, will really see the new brand spring to life.