Underwood

Introduction
Reimagining a 40-year old leader in civil and environmental engineering with a complete visual identity refresh.
Industry

Civil & Environmental Engineering

Services

Branding
Print
Trade Show
Website Design

Project Overview

The Challenge

Underwood Engineers is a civil and environmental engineering firm located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Since its founding in 1982, the firm enjoyed a solid reputation in the local engineering industry. However, their logo mark and design system had remained largely unchanged since the 80s, and no longer reflected the sophistication or depth of their services. The challenge for this project was one of balance. How do we update and modernize the brand’s visual identity to better reflect their leadership position in the market, while maintaining the brand equity and recognition that did exist with town, state, and federal agencies?

The Solution

We created a new logo mark that paid homage to the original, organized a flexible and robust visual design system to set Underwood up for future success, and produced a full suite of ready-to-use branded collateral.

Credits

Stackable Creative
Project Lead
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John Benford
Photography
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The new symbol, while still a nod to the “UE” monogram of the original, is more dynamic. The curved element through the middle plays with space and perspective, and it alludes to water, roads, and the feeling of moving forward. The wordmark was changed from all caps to sentence case to feel less formal and rigid and was carefully designed and spaced for optimal legibility in both printed and digital formats. This also allowed for more flexibility in creating a variety of logo configurations that could be used depending on placement and application.

The underlying grid of the logo’s monogram became the foundation for a variety of different brand patterns and shapes. These patterns were designed to feel like schematics or blueprints, and their application provides texture and visual interest.