Clean Plus Chemicals are a chemical manufacturing company supplying cleaning products to retailers throughout Australia and looking to broaden their market share. A dynamic team looking to the future, Clean Plus wanted to rebrand the company which included not only the logo and associated collateral (colours, fonts and branding elements) but as a widespread exercise also extending to a product lineup of over 400 SKUs.
The evolution of the existing logo was of some importance, and being able to carry forward some elements of the previous brand into the new identity was of some importance.
As the organisation focuses on green practices and environmental sensibility, incorporating this element into the new design was also a consideration.
The existing company name "Clean Plus Chemicals", used all of the name in the logo. As the business was mainly referred to as "Clean Plus", we discussed the possibility of dropping the "chemicals" type from the logo. After some discussion this was deemed favourable by the team. Internally at Outspoken Entourage, we also were considering using a "+" sign in lieu of the word "Plus", but we kept this up our sleeve before starting the design so we could present options which could work either way.
Some initial logo design concepts were designed. Options included accessible fonts/typefaces and some were designed from scratch using custom letterforms. In the early stages of design, limited colours were used so that the form of the new logo does not compete with colour, however green was an early consideration and fitted in with the sustainable and environmental practices the team had implemented internally.
We presented 5-6 different logo concepts to the team initially with each having various options within it. The team were very happy with a number of options with one of the team members expressing that "he could see a couple of them put into use tomorrow". This was very positive news for Outspoken Entourage and we moved forward with developing the logo into the form used today. Part of the new logo was the use of the "+" sign in lieu of the word "plus" shortening the logo and creating a robust design. The typeface was also customised from the original typeface presented so that it appeared crisper and without superfluous form.
Part of the development of the plus sign, involved rounding off a corner of each stroke which was considered in the evolution of the current logo in use of the time.
A number of colour options were presented (25 in total!), which each had one thing in common. They were all green! The team ended up selecting a darker forest green which differed from their competitors who were all using blue or red in their logos.
Upon the selection of the logo-form and preferred colour, we developed a comprehensive set of branding guidelines incorporating all information which may be required in future such as colours, exclusion zones, typefaces along with many examples of how the collateral could look when all rolled out.
Part of the project was the development of a grid system which was modular in nature allowing its use across a wide range of collateral such as information flyers, stationery, vehicles and more. The grid system was designed using the plus sign of the logo and then repeating its use with greens derived from the logo green. The construction of the grid system is explained in the image above.
Outspoken Entourage are very proud to have been a part of the rebrand of one of the leaders in chemical manufacturing in Australia. We are excited to see how the rollout of the new brand identity evolves with Clean Plus over the coming years.
