WindsorUrban branding project overview

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A web-app for constructing custom streetlight poles, outreach arms and luminaires

Designed as a unit, logo and name can be powerful. Above, note how the logo colour is used in the name to enable the wordspace between windsor and urban to be unnecessary.

I originated the new brand name, rebranded and in collaboration with the sales manager and CEO implemented a strong repositioning strategy centred on the distinguishing feature of WindsorUrban being the longest standing New Zealand manufacturer of street lighting and urban furniture in New Zealand. I built the new brand around that strong market positioning and strong growth in sales in the developing market segments of contemporary lighting design and energy saving, durable LED lighting were among the results.

Project Overview

WindsorUrban is an established Christchurch manufacturer of street lighting and urban furniture. At the start of 2012 I took on the project of redesigning the firm’s outdated Web 1.0 style website. But the as I researched the project and began sketching up draft logo ideas for presentation using the legacy name “Windsor Heritage” it became clear that the name had become outmoded and no longer reflected the firm’s product range and design innovation to such an extent that it was restraining the development of the optimal logo and brand image for the website. My observations prompted a dialogue with the chief executive and the marketing manager, the upshot of which was the website redesign job developed into a complete company rename and rebrand project.

MORE ABOUT THE LOGO DESIGN WORKFLOW & PRESENTATION

Clicking together a great web design!

Square image modules and page layouts based on a grid make for handsome organised web pages that are populated in a hurry.

A coherent, appealing website is a 24-hours-a-day selling machine to the domestic and export markets. WindsorUrban’s is a website that is as effective as their leading salesperson, as knowledgeable as their top buyer and as organised as their best office administrator. Their website captures online everything that is good about WindsorUrban’s business.

Prior to the redesign the legacy website was so poor that it was buried on page 12 of a Google search for “Urban Lighting, New Zealand”. Since my redesign the site ranks in the top three.

That achievement rested on my design for the website. It is built of compact modules that snap together neatly into a handsome grid. Not only does it look great, when you’re populating the site the pages come together really fast. With clearly designated slots for every element on the product catalogue pages, what started out as an overwhelming nested structure of folders containing resources my efforts transformed into a coherent website of neatly packaged pages and intuitive navigation. Customers use it with ease.

The clever web-app, the brainchild of the marketing manager/client Steve Campbell, has come together as a touchpoint that enables customers to mix and match streetlight luminaires and poles in any way they choose.

The grid structure organises the page information into uniform easy to read bites. The same grid structure that’s so easy to build is unusually easy for the user to navigate.

In addition to the accessible product catalogue the WindsorUrban site has a homepage that introduces the firm and helps the user navigate the site contents.

A rename that informs, modernises, accentuates and sells

The company was originally named ‘Windsor Heritage’. However it became clear as the research and development of the website progressed that the company had grown, product lines had expanded, market conditions had changed.

The heritage ‘Victorian / Edwardian’ style of the name and logo was a company brand image that no longer reflected who they were or what they did.

I raised this concern with the business owner and the marketing manager. It transpired that they and the sales team had similar reservations and agreed with me that a company rename and rebrand was essential for growth.

To proceed developing the web design without first squaring away the rename and rebrand was to put the cart before the horse. It followed that the best time to announce the rename and rebrand was to roll that into the launch of the redesigned website.

The human element

Illustration was necessary to portray a large number of products within the lighting columns / poles, signage systems, tree protection ranges of which there were no photos available from the client and no budget to photograph them.

Curved tree guard. Vector greyscale drawing with graphical human element providing scale..

Adding human figures to the presentation of street lighting and street furniture products gives context and scale and draws attention to products that are designed to blend into the built urban and suburban environment.

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