A brand refresh for Cardno

In recent years Cardno has transformed from a Brisbane-based consulting engineering firm into a global professional services firm delivering social and physical infrastructure projects in countries all over the world.

The Cardno brand had performed well during this period of rapid growth, however some issues with the way the Cardno brand presented to the market started to show:

• there was confusion around what Cardno stood for and the multidisciplinary services it provided
• the brand was stylistically outdated (as in issue 15 shown above) and needing to reflect more closely Cardno’s technical brilliance, sophistication, contemporary business approach & global footprint.

A brand refresh was needed to present a clearer, more consistent and positive message for one of the top professional services firms in Brisbane to their market.

Objectives of the refresh:

• presentation of a “best practice” external brand, which more appropriately reflected the size and global presence of the company giving the company credibility in the market.
• a more contemporary brand which was flexible enough to suit the needs of all internal business units, to assist in maintaining brand consistency
• a comprehensive suite of marketing collateral that the employees (as Cardno brand ambassadors) could be proud of
• a brand that more appropriately reflected Cardno’s vision, mission and values.

The Cardno brand has global reach and must appeal to a broad range of target audiences. The Cardno brand proposition, also used as a tagline is

Cardno. Shaping the future.

Lumino’s project scope:

• to develop a more comprehensive and prescriptive set of visual identity guidelines which provides some flexibility to users but limits the ability for business units to create documents and collateral which do not clearly link with the Cardno brand. This incorporated a review of the Cardno corporate colour palette and a move away from heavy usage of the Cardno Blue and Green (except for in the Corporate logo)
• design recommendations on major branding pieces such as the global website, corporate brochures, presentation folders, newsletters, discipline sheets, tender and proposal templates, CV templates, recruitment advert templates etc.

Lumino’s solution:

• the first part of the brand refresh process was to develop a unique look and feel through the use of graphic elements and colours that would become synonymous with the Cardno brand and allow for flexibility across the broad range of printed and online applications.
• to give the materials a truly global and corporate feel, we took inspiration from the brand by creating a dynamic graphic device derived from the point at which the 2 shapes of the symbol intersect. This graphic device is highly effective when teamed with imagery and solid block colour and gives the overall impression of energy and vibrancy.
• for the Cardno newsletter (the first item produced issue 17 as shown above) the brand elements provide areas to position pull quotes, text, house images and headlines to provide an interesting and fluid way to showcase the information for each story.