They came to me asking for a website. However, they also needed a corporate Identity. They didn't even have a logo at that point. So the situation required building a website and a brand at the same time.

One lesson that has stayed me for years is that a good design embodies one idea and one idea only. After a couple of false starts I realised to me that the logo should be sharp and aggressive. The company's main service is repairing wheels using a diamond sharp cutting blade mounted on a lathe and the logo had to reflect that.

So the logo became a visual expression of sharpness, and needed to be forcefully presented.

Building a website and a brand

So I went with Jost, a typeface based on Futura. It's a geometric sans serif with very sharp lines and angles. This was perfect for the Logotype. The next idea was to take the company's initials and cut sections of the lettering off. Given that cutting was the core of the company's offer, this seemed appropriate.

Finally I continued with the aggressive approach and went with black and red for the corporate colours. The client was very happy with this as they had found the alternatives to be somewhat insipid.

Once the Logo had been approved, I was asked to help with the livery for the company's main vehicle. This van would be their base of operations and as such, would be useful for advertising and brand building.

I took the idea of sharp edges and created a design underpinned by a blade running the length of the van. The most difficult thing was making sure that every aspect of the design would fit in with the various parts of the vehicle. Eventually we balanced all of the elements and the livery was complete.

This was the first opportunity to employ the logo out in the wild, as it were. I was very happy with the results.

Once I had delivered the van artwork, I returned to working on the Website. The curved blade graphic that I had used for the van turned to be an ideal fit for the website as well.

This allowed me to use a lot of diamond cut wheel imagery as background images. The images give each page its own character.

As has become increasingly common, I ended up writing all of the copy for the site as well as designing and coding it.