Our new visual identity differentiates DW Electric among the trades industry, and reflects their significant growth as a company.

Background and challenge

Our brief for DW Electric – an electrical and lighting installation company – was to build a clear and distinctive updated identity, and then create an effective online presence to reach new audiences.

This identity needed to move away from the feel of a traditional trades brand and instead place the emphasis on creating beautiful spaces.

A family-run business for generations, the company had grown beyond its original roots and they needed an identity that was more sophisticated, but not cold. It needed to reflect a company that had grown into a larger brand, but that remained true to the people behind the brand – down-to-earth and warm.

Founded in 1987, from the outset their service was built around a deeply personal approach. A contractor who could sit with each client, carefully designing electrical and lighting layouts for each particular space.

Nearly four decades on, DW Electric has grown this reputation both residentially and commercially, deeply centring their work around the client and the personalised space they wish to create. And so, with a process that is so intentional and meticulous, but also so heavily geared towards building client relationships, our visual identity had to match.

The project came at a pivotal moment. DW Electric was preparing to hand the reins of control from father to son, and the company needed a brand identity that could carry it confidently into the future, and secure the business of the next generation of customers while fostering the loyalty of their existing ones.

We needed to position them for the future, and respect their legacy. This would mean building a brand identity that is grounded in what made the company successful, but acknowledging that in the future the next wave of homeowners will find their contractors online.

We were brought in to deliver a new visual identity, and from there to bring it to life across the marketing assets the business needed most: print collateral, vehicle wraps, and a custom-built website.

Process and solution

Our work here, as always, started with listening closely. We learned about their history and founding, and the importance of the business to their family.

We delved into their values and goals, understanding the values that have always underpinned the company, and how that impacts the way they work. And what emerged was just how laser focused they are on the exact needs of their clients. The customer experience is the most important part of their work – both in terms of a customer’s experience with DW Electric, but also in their experience of the space they’re creating.

Every client gets a fully bespoke service. How their lighting and electrical systems are designed and installed is defined entirely by what each client wants from their space, and how they will use it. The DW Electric team guides their customers through creating that space, holding their hands at every stage and alleviating the stress of a building project with clarity, honesty, and transparency.

So, our research and deeper understanding of DW Electric revealed how they design the electrical systems that let a space become liveable, beautiful, and personal. The service isn’t really the wiring – it’s the way the wiring quietly enables the life that happens around it. The connection between a person and the space they live in is what DW Electric is actually selling.

We took that idea of connection and let it run the identity. A single, deliberate line became the central visual device, representing at once a literal wire, and also the idea of connection – both between a person and their space; and between DW Electric and their customer.

It carries both the technical and the emotional registers of the service in one mark, which meant the identity could feel artful without losing the precision and competence the trade demands.

The wordmark gives that idea its most visible expression, with the line connecting the two halves of the name in the same way the brand connects people to the spaces they live in.

The typeface, Saans, is clean, contemporary, and quietly confident, with the warmth needed to keep the identity from drifting into the cold minimalism we were carefully steering past. The palette of black, grey, off-white, blue, and white was chosen to feel modern and grounded.

From there, the visual system carried into everything – a new website that introduces the business’s design-led approach to electrical work, business cards and a presentation folder, customer review cards, staff t-shirts and hats, vehicle wraps for the fleet, and a CAD title block for technical documents.

Each touchpoint was an opportunity to repeat the same simple promise – that DW Electric is a more considered kind of contracting company. ‘The line’ gave us a consistent graphical element to communicate this promise, and a visual mark that could be owned by the brand, and hold the identity together in its use across many different applications.

Result

The result of our work is a brand identity that embodies the DW Electric values of honesty, transparency, and unwavering commitment to their customers. It positions them in a way that is fitting for a company that has grown so much in scale, and conveys an operation capable of delivering an exceptional client experience and service across projects of all sizes.

Often electrical and lighting design is seen as purely practical, but the aspiration here was to convey something that felt more design- and human-centred.

The new identity does exactly that, and delivers what the family business needed it to do. It feels like them – honest, sincere, and quietly proud of the craft – while looking and reading like a business that’s ready for its next generation of clients.

A key goal here was also to escape the visual conventions of the trades industry, and present something differentiated. DW Electric wanted an identity that could sit comfortably alongside the top-level brands they admire from outside the trades. Something honest, sincere, and down-to-earth, but also competent, sophisticated, and modern.

This has certainly been achieved. The brand sits apart from the typical trades aesthetic the team were determined to avoid, and gives DW Electric a confident, distinctive presence in a category where this is hard to find.

What’s more, and importantly for a family business, it maintains its approachability, trustworthiness, and warmth, while conveying the clarity and confidence of a company led by quality design, and that treats its work as a craft.

And beyond the core identity we created, the new website now carries the updated brand into the digital space where new customers will now go looking for a contractor, with a tone and look that match the quality of DW Electric’s work. It gives the business a credible online front door for the first time, and a foundation it can keep building on as the next generation takes the company forward.

Ultimately, the new brand is ready for future growth, and is already helping DW Electric with its outreach and reaching new audiences.