CONTEXT
Maker Coating Systems is one of the UK’s leading independent suppliers of high performance industrial paint & maintenance products. Over the last 40 years they have established a strong reputation & loyal core customer base that includes national building contractors, numerous local councils, the Royal Navy & MoD, heritage building associations, and more.
However, it was clear that the business was not achieving its full potential. Brand awareness was relatively low, and saturation into the local market was challenged by competition from much larger nationwide brands. A web shop (that had been established 5 years previously) had increased overall sales, but search engine rankings were low, drop-out & abandoned cart rates were high, and sales of the niche industry specialty coatings (the type that Makers specialises in) were limited in number.
Despite its long history, the business had never formally established its mission & values, brand identity, or engaged in comprehensive competitor analysis. It was clear the brand needed to be treated more like a start-up than a long-standing business and a full brand identity would need to be developed from the ground up.
STRATEGY
Interviews & discussions with the team lead to the development of core mission, values, & USP. A consistent theme throughout these was the balance between the high level technical expertise and the human connection/customer experience that the business offers – something that differentiates them from their competitors who typically have less highly technical expertise and/or a more hands-off sales pipeline.
Visually the identity needed to reflect these core themes whilst also offering a bold, highly recognisable brand as touch points within such niche sectors can be limited to as little as one or two interactions every few years.
Competitor & market analysis established consistent use of ‘at work’ imagery (that which shows professionals using the products) across all competitor specifiers/suppliers and end user customers (construction companies, maintenance crews, steel fabricators, joiners, etc). This singular imagery style being in use across so many sectors fails to differentiate those who specialise in the substrates, materials, & coatings from those who specialise in their repair & application. Focusing Makers’ imagery on materiality, texture, & coatings allowed the brand to clearly represent their area of expertise & strongly differentiate themselves from their competitors & customers visually.
SCOPE
Visual Identity
Brand Identity
Packaging/Labels
Brand Guidelines
A clean industrial colour palette helps solidify Maker Coatings as a technical, premium brand (and moves them away from the overuse of Makers Green which had been cheapening the brand).
Rigid compositional ‘bento box’ grids help reinforce the mathematical, technical feel whilst also referencing the brick, tile, & slab layouts from their customer’s industries.
The typography follows construction & technical industry norms (bold all caps sans serif, and thin all caps sans serif respectively), however, this is presented with softer rounded forms in reference to the human approach & the existing Maker wordmark.
In their business cards an opportunity was recognised to tailor each card to its audience. By prominently featuring industry specific substrates & materials from a range of sectors, sales staff could demonstrate the breadth of Makers expertise and provide an industry aligned card to each potential client.
A number of in-house branded products are produced by Maker Coatings. These products span a diverse range of industries, from industrial professionals to DIY consumers. As such, their design needed to satisfy both the norms of consumer facing & technical industrial products whilst retaining a recognisably consistent design language that aligned with the wider Maker Coatings brand.
Full brand guidelines were developed (including brand voice & specific language) to solidify the Maker brand across various touch-points & staff and ensure consistent presentation.
