Progressive Identity Design

Progressive is an expert independent financial IT systems consultancy operating in the oil and gas sector. Ready for change and with the plan to proactively promote their services, Progressive asked us to make them look like the expert professionals they are.

A corporate look and feel was essential to make the connection with executives in the oil and gas industry. Conscious of the fact that we were dealing with a target market that generally isn’t design aware, we agreed that the look should be understated whilst instilling confidence in the professionalism of the business. Whilst maintaining a corporate look, Progressive was keen to draw attention to its points of differentiation - the modern attitude and human approach that the company adopt. The company also saw the branding exercise as an opportunity to make Progressive stand apart from the majority of their competitors, who typically sport a dated image.

All of our design projects begin with brainstorming and sketching, some projects progress out of the sketchbook faster than others! Our designers worked exceptionally hard to avoid falling into the trap of drawing upon the obvious and over-used imagery of arrows to signify progress... but to everyone's relief the eurika moment did happen.

Progressive's services are all related to financial systems, financial controls and process optimisation - but how to represent this in a visually pleasing and dynamic way? We came up with this stylish geometric pattern, that as well as being a literal representation of mathematics, suggests motion, forward momentum... progression. The pattern lends itself well to use across Progressive’s communications, making consistency and a unified brand identity easy to achieve. The pattern was inspired by the logomark, which works well as a stand alone entity, a mark of understated confidence and professionalism.

When it came to typeface selection usability was key. We wanted something simple, that, like the rest of the design, would suggest understated class, but we also wanted to avoid being different for the sake of being different. The typeface we selected is perfectly fit for purpose. ‘Progressive’ is a long word, and needs to look balanced when applied to all of the company’s communications, from website to letterhead. We opted for a very simple openly spaced type, making a balanced look easy.

Having toyed with the idea of a monotone identity, in the end we decided to apply colour - the soft blue-green we selected (after staring into a flame, the choice became obvious) not only represents the industry in which Progressive operate, but also hints at the strong feminine influence within the business.