Project: Autex is a large-scale manufacturer – the largest producer and market leader in interior acoustic baffling products in New Zealand. They have healthy export volumes and offices in Australia, UK and the USA.

Their acoustic products are chosen by leading architects around the globe and used in cutting edge commercial and residential spaces to drastically reduce the amount of atmospheric noise within a building. We were tasked with developing a new customer facing brand specifically for the interior acoustic products, previously branded with their corporate identity.

Challenge: Whilst Autex’s products are innovative and their ranges are designed to suit the needs of the world’s leading architects, the corporate brand had never reflected this, making it difficult to present to their design savvy audience. We needed to shift brand perception from functional manufacturer to design-lead innovators.

Thinking: To get to the crux of the functional requirements of the brand, we began with an extensive audit of their product portfolio and conducted in-depth interviews with installers and architects to understand needs and perceptions. From this we rationalised their ranges and defined the problem – a simplification was required.

With the functional requirements of the brand organised, we set out defining how it needed to be presented to their design savvy audience, decerning the need for something that demonstrates timeless design principals, is equally engaging and distinctive whilst also understated and considered – allowing the product shine.

Design idea: Taking inspiration from both the product and its function, we developed a suite of graphic patterns based of the panels of the product and the quieting of soundwaves. These architectural, dimensional forms have been created to be adaptable to all touch points and serve as a distinctive and ownable brand asset.

We reduced the palette to a unique black and white, allowing for the colours of their products (a key selling point) take centre stage in photography. A secondary colour palette was derived from their products specifically for infographics.

A personable, yet professional tone-of-voice was developed with engaging headlines making full use of the ‘sound’ subject matter.