Brand Identity & Visual Design
2016
TASK
Wheelwell needed a logo that car enthusiasts can quickly fall in love with; a recognizable brand that embodies the sense of speed, passion, automotive, and community. A symbol that at first glance, even from far away, means cars. It needed to be simple, clean, powerful, versatile, yet timeless.
APPROACH
Between the hundreds of sketches and the feedbacks we had received from the team and other industry professionals, we begin narrowing down our designs to include imageries of these three keywords that we felt very strongly about: strength, movement, and automotive. I took the literal meaning of what a wheel well should look like, then added movement and speed, and finally, the W, in Wheelwell. Because it's for the automotive community, the logo also needed to be something that can be used on multiple mediums and products, while staying meaningful to what it represents.
For weeks, we tried logos after logos – putting them on cars, banners, web app and more. And like love at first sight, we knew that we had found the “one” when we laid our eyes upon it as the logo appeared as a vinyl decal on the rear window of a Porsche GT3. It appeared before us like the unspoken of words silent acknowledgement as waves of emotion, excitement, and eager anticipation swept through the entire room of all those involved.
The Brand Book
Once the logo was finished, I begin developing the brand identity guideline for the company. While the company had previously used a set of colors that was created by the CD before me, in less than a year — its freshness was beginning to wear off. I not only updated the primary colors, I also took a step further by introducing even more secondary colors which were already evident in the design of the product. By incorporating the messaging that we've been using externally to both users and prospective investors, the brand book serves as a design guide and a marketing cliff note for the entire team to reference from.
