Fulcrum is a company you probably haven’t heard of yet that’s doing something truly extraordinary: they’re turning household garbage into biofuel. Yep. Through science, the plastic string cheese wrapper, bread bag, toothpaste tube et all in your kitchen garbage bin can be turned back into oil that can then in turn be refined into fuel that can fly a commercial airline. The end result is fuel that’s much greener than the traditional stuff that comes out of the ground, fuel that keeps less household garbage from entering landfills, and above all, fuel that will help to lower greenhouse gases. What Fulcrum is doing is going to change the world in a very positive way, so we helped them craft new branding to better tell their story.
In addition to a full brand and competitive audit, we also were asked to look at the existing Fulcrum Bioenergy logo mark. We responded with hundreds of iterations which we then refined down to 3 main directions.
Below are just a sampling of the various logomarks we developed to align the companies mark with strategic insights, company values, and brand positioning we were developing simultaneously. The first set we call “Power of the Symbol.”
Our ‘F‘ logo is designed to reference a fuel pump with a drop (the rational side of what Fulcrum does). The drop doubles as what is called a lachrymal terminal in typography – the bulbous tear-drop shape letter ending. The lateral arm is extended equidistant from the vertical to create a ‘+‘ symbol referencing our brand promise (positive energy, the emotional side of what Fulcrum stands for).
These elements, when combined can be a standalone symbol representing the brand or combined with ‘ulcrum‘ to complete the logotype. The drip in the mark is also designed to look like it is filling up the ‘u‘ when combined into the logotype.
The second set we call “Graphik Geometry.”
Based on a modified version of Graphik typeface, this angular logo references a fulcrum’s apex/geometry in a non-overt way, and imbues the logomark with meaning. Tension between positive and negative space, is meant to give an emotional feeling like the teetering of a lever. An italicized “energy+“ expresses activity and implies that the brand is more than just an energy company.
The positive symbol is superscripted to reference scientific notation, mathematics and engineering as well as our brand promise of “positive energy.“
The third set we call “Typographic Energy.”
In these directions we make use of multi-typeface based logomarks to express positivity and multidimensionality. We have worked the ‘+‘ sign into the logomark in many of these cases. A different direction than you will see adopted by many current energy companies.
We redesigned the look and feel of the Fulcrum website to a modern, eye-catching format that amplified their voice as a company, applied modern imagery and typography, custom textures, and interesting UI elements and navigation. Below are two versions of the redesigned homepage including an advanced second version that employed the use of live infographics to display to consumers and corporations the carbon offsetting implications of the Fulcrum technology in real time.
Business cards are always a fun place to experiment with new brand identities. For Fulcrum we had a number of concepts ranging in complexity. The first concept embedded a small battery and connecting negative/positive terminals so the card itself could be used as a power bay. The simpler approaches applied our new branding in an elegant manner that allowed the holder to be proud showing them off.
