illumanize were asked to create a brand identity and develop a website for an eco-construction start-up, providing a clear set of guidelines for design partners and a seamless journey for customers.
Innovative, collaborative and with sustainability at its heart, We Build Eco is a collective venture comprising some of the key players in the UK’s eco-construction industry: Ecomerchant, leading supplier of sustainable building materials, Steico, manufacturer of timber construction systems and natural insulation, Kithurst Homes, timber frame construction company and Build Collective, bespoke engineering consultancy. Together, they have developed an incredible process to create energy-efficient building kits from any design.
By combining their expertise, and with the help of a million-pound, state-of-the-art, 5-axis Hundegger saw, We Build Eco have the skills to translate 2D plans into a 3D design which is then converted into an exact cutting guide for a timber frame kit house. The process is unerringly precise, with an accuracy of 1.5mm, and the end result is a natural and sustainable building shell delivered as a kit and pre-packed in assembly order. This makes for a highly efficient, low-waste construction process. Genius!
For the full story, check out this article in Passive House & Sustainable Building Magazine – turn to page 70.
We love working with start-ups – it’s a fantastic opportunity to shape the design and messaging of a new enterprise from the ground up and steer the perception of a brand for years to come.
Our challenge was to take We Build Eco to market with an eye-catching brand identity and convey all the complexities and benefits of their approach with an efficient customer journey from discovery to conversion via a new website.
We Build Eco are rightly proud of their eco-credentials, but their USP lies in their innovative process – a relatively complex system that would need to be summarised effectively for both self-builders and construction professionals alike. Each stage of the process offers a range of benefits, from the flexibility of design to the convenience of kit-building and the healthy living environment created when using all-natural materials. All of this would need to be demonstrated in the time it takes to scan a homepage.
First the brand identity. The more we explored the eco-construction sector the more ‘green-with-a-leaf’ logos we found! So, daring to be different, we went in the opposite direction. Pink! A vivid colour to convey passion and creativity, and differentiate the brand from the usual green brands within the eco construction sector. The logo background was designed to evoke the shape of a house, with 5 sides representing the 5 axes of the Hundegger saw.
The logo font is strong for clarity, with cut-out elements to represent precision and the construction process. The letter forms resemble parts from a kit, with a full stop included for emphasis.
We spent some time getting to grips with the intricacies of the We Build Eco process and then distilled its essence into a 7-stage presentation covering the product, the accuracy of production, kit-assembly, construction, healthy living environment and the business-to-business offer. Each stage was summarised with a brief paragraph, supporting images and a a3-line motif – rapid, precise, adaptable or efficient, low-waste, construction. These seven stages were then designed into a responsive website landing page which would tell the whole story from start to finish in a single scroll.
We were also pretty proud of the strapline “cutting-edge building innovation” which perfectly encapsulates the We Build Eco ethos and contains a cunning reference to the cutting technology used in building shell manufacture.
Pete’s design in response to the brief precisely embodied our brand’s vision, and we approved his first draft without hesitation. His bold logo, fresh design and layout managed to simplify complex ideas for the website and present them coherently to our clients, resulting in a steady flow of well qualified enquiries since our launch.
