JHB

Branding · Identity

An identity for forty years of hydraulics

Hydraulic cylinders for steel plants, mines and power stations, built in South Africa for forty years.

Client
Oiltech Systems
Year
2016
Scope
Brand identity, Web design, Build
A fabricator in a brass welding mask joining a hydraulic cylinder flange, sparks lighting the bench and a white Oiltech hard hat hanging on the wall behind.
Cylinder welding, workshop bench.

(Overview)Not one of their customers is a showroom, and nothing they make is bought on how it looks.

(The brief)The company name is read on a workshop floor, not in a brochure. It needed one look that held everywhere it appeared: on the cylinders themselves, on the stationery, on site kit, and on a website that had to explain eight kinds of hydraulic project to engineers who already knew the subject better than I did.

Colour

Type

Aa set in Helvetica Neue Condensed Black.Helvetica Neue Condensed Black Primary
Aa set in Bebas Regular.Bebas Regular Secondary

Two condensed weights, neither of which thins out at distance.

A fitter assembling a hydraulic cylinder, an Oiltech hard hat hanging on the column beside him.
Cylinder fabrication, workshop floor.
The Oiltech Systems site open on a laptop on the workshop bench, a fitter working on a cylinder behind.
The site, open on the bench.
Holding page, live during the build

(The conditions)The colours had to work under welding light and workshop grey, not on white paper.

(What shipped)A holding page went live while the site was built, so there was something to point at from day one. The finished site runs to five pages, with the eight project types laid out on a service map and four service cards on the home page.

Website

Home. Advanced Hydraulics, four service cards.
About. Company history and areas of expertise.
Hydraulic projects. Eight project types, service map.
Services. Four cards with technical photography.
Contact. Lanseria office, enquiry form, map.
01 / 05
Oiltech Systems business cards stacked, navy and red on white.
Cards stacked
The Oiltech Systems monogram: an oil drop split into navy and red halves.
The oil-drop monogram
A worn Oiltech Systems hard hat hanging on a steel column in the workshop, a cylinder on the bench behind.
The mark, on the workshop floor
Oiltech Systems cards on an engineer's desk at dusk, beside a hydraulic schematic and calipers.
In the drawing office

Forty years old, and a logo you can read across a workshop floor.

More work

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Most of these are still in use.

Contact

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