Development Systems
Rebranding and website development for a technology BIM company
Development Systems is both a BIM designer, an IT company and a part of the development business. Having started its work in 2017 in St. Petersburg, already in 2019 it received the status of one of the BIM leaders of the Russian market and became a strategic partner of RBI Group. A young but daring team of professionals develops new products based on BIM technologies. The objective of the re-branding is to match the image of an advanced technology company and attract young professionals with the help of the HR brand.
The DS brand character: discreet but informal, businesslike but not boring. A sense of technological superiority is the feeling that the target audience should experience from communication with DS.
INTELLECTUAL PUNK
Modern minimalism will be relevant in design for a long time to come. But in order to stand out against the background of other players, who will eventually also come to this trend, it is necessary to add charm and charisma to the brand. Brand geometry and glitch-art effect refer us to high-tech products that the company prepares, complex tasks that it solves and mistakes that it allows to calculate and eliminate in time with the help of BIM technologies.
Modern minimalism will be relevant in design for a long time to come. But in order to stand out against the background of other players, who will eventually also come to this trend, it is necessary to add charm and charisma to the brand. Brand geometry and glitch-art effect refer us to high-tech products that the company prepares, complex tasks that it solves and mistakes that it allows to calculate and eliminate in time with the help of BIM technologies.
OLD COLOUR SCHEME
We analysed the current colour scheme. Some of the colour combinations presented in the previous corporate style are not working due to the lack of contrasts. The text colour should not merge with the background colour.
NEW COLOUR PALETTE
Keeping continuity with the current corporate identity through a classic combination of colours (black, white, dark grey) and turquoise accents.
Shades of robust grey are the base colour. Fresh colour accents (turquoise) as sneakers for a business suit add life to the brand image, conveying its passionate character.
Shades of robust grey are the base colour. Fresh colour accents (turquoise) as sneakers for a business suit add life to the brand image, conveying its passionate character.
LOGO TRANSFORMATION
Key design mistake in the former logo: it is not clear what is more important, the sign or the text. There is a lot of visual noise: a clutter of strips of different thicknesses.
Although the sign consists of thin lines, its size is large - in the menu site text will be smaller than it could be.
The logo should be clearly visible in small size: on small media and especially on smartphones. If part of the sign (thin lines) is missing - the overall brand recognition is lost.
In the new logo, the sign is balanced with the name, the DIN font used is thicker and more modern. The logo is laconic, does not ‘fall apart’, the idea of hexoid is also readable.
Although the sign consists of thin lines, its size is large - in the menu site text will be smaller than it could be.
The logo should be clearly visible in small size: on small media and especially on smartphones. If part of the sign (thin lines) is missing - the overall brand recognition is lost.
In the new logo, the sign is balanced with the name, the DIN font used is thicker and more modern. The logo is laconic, does not ‘fall apart’, the idea of hexoid is also readable.
The visual identity immerses into the digital reality in which DS projects are realised. At the same time, there are no strict limits in the use of graphics, as well as in the character of the brand: branded elements are used on any backgrounds arbitrarily in different combinations while maintaining a harmonious composition.
Accents are created with contrasting details such as neon touches.
The style remains minimalist, but is rich enough to stand out from unimpressive competitors.
The style remains minimalist, but is rich enough to stand out from unimpressive competitors.
One of the elements of the style is vertical strips of text, characteristic of Japanese writing and at the same time referring to the matrix. If you want, you can even read the company values and quotes of the founder sewn into the text.
Visualisations and photos of projects from the portfolio as the face of the company are actively used as backgrounds when designing media. In order to bring images in different colours to a uniform style, we implement branded colour filters that adjust the degree of transparency of the picture.
FONT
We use Geometria font for typing in communication products as well as for typing brand messages, and Calibri as the main font for corporate documents and official letters.
Cadillac Sans Semibold and VCR OSD Mono fonts are used
as elements of illustration as typographic composition.
Cadillac Sans Semibold and VCR OSD Mono fonts are used
as elements of illustration as typographic composition.
The task of a business card site is to convey the specialisation of the company, present the implemented projects and reveal the philosophy and advantages of the company. The structure of the site is as easy to understand as possible, and the information is concise. We speak simply about complicated things.
The image of a technological European company is built on references to translucent screens, large headlines, minimalistic presentation and animation of nuances - brand elements. The style of the site points towards the future.
Don't forget to alternate between rational blocks (numbers, facts, diplomas) and emotional blocks. People trust people. In addition to the direct speech of the company founder, let partners and clients speak. If the company operates in a narrow market or customer feedback is not easy to get - the dramaturgy of the site will strengthen the opinion of experts known to a narrow circle. It remains to bring photos of different quality to stylistic unity.
The target audience of the website as a communication channel is not only future clients, but also potential employees. The level of specialists is one of the company's competitive advantages.
We allocate a separate page for HR-brand tasks, where we place a video revealing the atmosphere within the team and a link to vacancies. We present information about the number of specialists in different fields in the form of a counter, the data of which can change at any time, as it should be in a dynamically developing company.
How to present projects in the portfolio if the company is not engaged in architecture or construction? The result of DS's work is not sketches of future houses or built buildings, but BIM models and IT developments that make a developer's work easier. We added animation so that if you hover your mouse over a recognisable facade, you can see its BIM model in the portfolio.
On each project page, in addition to information and renderings, we show the DS area of responsibility in a particular project by changing the transparency of the icons.
Thanks to the automatic adaptation of the site on the Tilda builder for all mobile devices - no need to do double work, specially optimising the site or creating a mobile version. The design is created with adaptive layout in mind.
Current website: www.ds.do
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Really cool site, cool design. The builder, on which it was all assembled, is simple, even I needed literally a couple of minutes to understand - it will be easy enough for us to make minor modifications. Thank you very much, we are happy with the result.