I designed the logo and stationery for Capbrown Consulting.

I was contacted by Colin Brown to develop the brand identity for his new company, Capbrown Consulting. Colin is an engineer with board level experience who has been working primarily within the transport sector for the last 20 years. Capbrown Consulting will be offering top level consultancy services to the engineering and construction sectors.

The brief

Colin specified that the logo should be simple, crisp and smart and it should communicate change and unity. Additionally, the brand should have a personal touch, linking back directly to Colin since his business will be developed through personal networking.

Concept sketches

I decided to work on Colin’s and the company’s initials, C and B, to keep the brand as personal and direct as possible. Two keywords that particularly caught my attention, unity and change, were the main inspiration for the sketching session.
Here are some of the concepts I developed.

The mark

The mark is derived from the infinity symbol ∞ and consists of a loop that forms the letters C and B. Not only is the infinity symbol a mathematical symbol that directly references the engineering industry but the loop also shows both unity, as the letters are tied together, and change, as they turn into another.
A stylized cap or badge provides reference to the company name in a not obvious, dynamic way. The gold color confers the logo a timeless quality that symbolizes professionalism.

Colin asked me to add subtle styling to create depth. I used simple gradients and shadows to turn the loop into a three-dimensional ribbon that lies on a gold background. The cap/badge was turned into a cutout space to make the mark appear inset from the page.

The loop extracted from the badge provides an alternative symbol to be used in collateral designs.

Typography

The company name is set in Museo Sans 500 in all capitals. Increasing tracking for all capitals is a common trick to improve legibility.
Gold will be the primary color for titles and emphsis. A secondary color, a dark grey, will be used for body text.

Stationery and collateral

For the business cards and letterhead I chose a simple, sober design that incorporates the alternative symbol as a watermark.

Additional digital assets were developed including email signatures, letter and proposal templates. Here’s a title card to be used in presentations.

Conclusion

I am very happy with this design. The process went smoothly and the outcome is among my best work to date.
Colin’s input was invaluable. First of all he gave a very precise and extensive description of his company and his requirements for the identity. This provided the information to kickstart the design. His suggestions during the design process steered me in the right direction. It’s easy to get lost in a detail and lose sight of the big picture so I would like to commend Colin for being as dedicated and passionate about the design as I was. The best designs are always two-way collaborations with the client.
Here is what Colin had to say about working with me on this project:

Andrea provides a fantastic service. From start to finish, he took a couple of weeks to develop my logo and stationery from scratch.
His design skills are brilliant. He is very good at understanding what his customers want and he responds back within a few hours to sort out details during the design phase. You can probably get a cheaper logo designed by a web-designer but it won’t have had the thought and creativity applied to it. And with something as important as your business identity, you need a logo that makes you feel proud.
That’s what Andrea has done for CAPBROWN.