THE CLIENT
Based in Southend-on-Sea, Borough is one of the UK’s leading plastic injection moulders and chrome platers of plastics. Their focus is on quality, using the latest injection moulding equipment and manufacturing processes to offer high-quality results.
THE PROJECT
Borough have had the same logo for many years, but they weren’t overly keen on it and decided it was time for a change. Having previously redesigned their website, they turned to us to see what we could come up with.
Their current logo had a thin typeface with three coloured balls made up of thin lines. The balls represented the molecules that are mixed together in the electroplating process. Whilst this was a clever representation of what the company does, it was obscure for people unfamiliar with the process and hard to explain. The design of the circles also meant that it was tricky to scale down, as the gaps between the lines would disappear.
THE WORK
During the meeting with Borough, it was decided that ‘Brough moulding and chrome plating’ was too long, and we suggested simplifying this to simply Borough Chrome, which summed up what they did.
The first thing we wanted to change with the logo was the typeface. We felt it needed something bolder and more industrial to better reflect the nature of the business. We narrowed it down to Gotham and Din. Whilst Gotham had more rounded O’s, which fed back to the circles from the original logo, Din looked more industrial and was a little narrower, meaning the logo wouldn’t be as long.
The colours were also changed to a less vibrant blue that felt more professional and more suited to the industry, with ‘chrome’ in grey to reflect the colour of chrome and allow the main word, Borough, to stand out.
The client was keen to have an icon with the logo, as they wanted a recognisable symbol that would further explain what they did and provide a graphic they could use across the brand.
Firstly, we tried making the balls solid so as not to move away from the original brand too much, but again this wouldn’t be very clear to most people. The managed team at Borough were happy to move away from them and try something new. We tried a vector silhouette of one of their machines, but this was too detailed for the logo and would not scale well.
We remembered that during our meeting with the Borough team, one of the things that their customers liked and the company pushed was their location – they are one the UK’s leading chrome platers after all, so why not push this in the brand?
We discussed this approach with the Borough team and they were keen to explore it. They suggested a scimitar, reflecting the weapon that is showcased on the Southend-On-Sea flag. We tried a stylised version of the scimitar, which looked nice, but would be confusing for anyone not familiar with the flag.
In the end, the answer was simple – the union flag. A common feature in any brand pushing their British credentials, the flag would efficiently showcase one of the company’s USPs. Rather than use the whole flag, we focussed on one quarter of it – with a little artistic licence on the dimensions to get enough elements visible – so that it would be obvious what it was, but still slightly abstract at first glance.
THE RESULTS
The team at Borough were delighted with the logo and within a week, with positive feedback from all of the team. Within a week, it was already adorning a new pull up banner (which we also designed for them) that was used at a packaging show.