I'm rebranding a UK railway brake overhaul specialist: a new logo, a new identity and a new website. This diary follows the project as it happens, one stage at a time.
The problem at this stage
Railway brakes are safety-critical. The people who buy brake overhauls are fleet engineers, depot managers and quality teams, and they compare suppliers side by side before they pick up the phone. Before I could design anything for that audience, I needed to see what they see when they compare.
What I did
Before the kickoff meeting, I audited eight websites: global manufacturers, direct rivals and companies in neighbouring areas of rail engineering. I looked at each homepage through three lenses:
- Colour. Which colours each company leads with, and which are left unused.
- Claims. What each company says about itself, and whether there's evidence behind it.
- Imagery. Real photography, renders or stock, and what each choice says about the business.
Everything went into one table, so the patterns showed up at a glance rather than site by site.
What it changed
The audit turned a blank page into five sharp questions for the kickoff. Instead of asking the client "what do you want your brand to say?", I could ask why their customers choose them over named alternatives, and what evidence we could put in front of a sceptical engineer.
In a market where many companies use the same words, the brand that shows its evidence is the one people trust.