We were approached by Direct Air & Pipework to help showcase the success of their business on their 25th year in business. The project brief included a new logo identity and visual branding to position them as a forward thinking, modern compressed air supplier and help communicate their technical expertise and innovative approach to market.
In addition to the rebrand, we did a complete rebuild of their current website which was becoming difficult for the team to manage in-house with an out of date design and limited structure. We were tasked with developing a technically advanced site on a more robust and future proof publishing platform. Key goals for the site were to offer a better customer journey with feature-rich landing pages built for specific requirements, generate more leads with improved call-to-actions and build an advanced air compressor search feature to help visitors find the perfect product.
Logo Design
Working very closely with the DA team to establish their core values, brand vision and traits, we set to work on creating a new logo concept to align with their brand. We took inspiration from the lines in the original DA logo and crafted a bespoke DA motif that is abstract, unique and evokes the technical expertise of the company.
The uppercase DA motif represents a more technical and innovative side of the brand whilst the Direct Air typeface was in title case to add balance and authority.
A Dynamic New Brand Identity
We presented the logo in alternative arrangements with a reversed colourway giving context to how it can be used on marketing literature and social media for greater impact. For the colour palette, we retained the royal blue from the original branding to help with consistency but evolved it with new textures and graphical imagery to introduce more creative, abstract and dynamic visuals for future marketing and messaging.
The new branding was rolled out across all marketing collateral including business cards, corporate stationary, social media platforms, vehicle livery, signage and exhibition displays.
Website Design and Development on WordPress
Part of the challenge of this site was to extend the limited standard WordPress platform to deliver a truly easy to use editing experience with great flexibility – all without the client having to remember a single line of code! Creatively, we extended the overall brand architecture that was created for the initial branding project to deliver a consistent visual look and feel for the entire site that achieves a serious, trustworthy tone of voice. Featured landing pages can now be created by the client quickly and easily.
UX Design
In addition to the page content features we developed, one of the areas of development we are most proud of is the air compressor search. This is quite a technical subject matter and Direct Air’s clients often struggle to understand exactly what sort of product they need for their business.
WordPess Rest API
Working along-side the expert Direct Air technical and sales team, we identified the main criteria that people use and built a completely bespoke air compressor search, powered by the WordPress RestAPI. This allowed us to create a solution with a truly ‘app’ type of feel, which works on any device and quickly loads in filtered results without any re-loading of the page. From the client’s perspective we have a completely bespoke editing experience in the WordPress admin area, allowing the editing and addition of products as more become available and from the visitors point of view Direct Air now have the most powerful, easy to use Air Compressor search of any supplier.
Emma Dolby - Marketing Manager
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