MACHINERY LTD
My cooperation with Machinery started already in 1972 and it lasted for over a decade. The key role is the total development leap of the company starting in 1977. The old visual identity changed. The whole operation culture was recreated, and the marketing strategies and wide staff training took the company to be one of the leading industrial technology conglomerates of Finland. I was with creating identification programs, marketing campaigns and training programmes for years. The company logo was taken directly from the black and yellow attention tape used commonly in the industry.
OY LOHJA AB
My cooperation with Oy Lohjan Kalkkitehdas - Lojo Kalkverk Ab started in 1972. One of the first big campaigns was the launching of Finlux color televisions. Soon it was understood, that the back of the top-level televisions cannot read “Kalkkitehdas” (“lime factory”). This started a process that took two years and two company meetings, after which the visual atmosphere, emblems, the line of marketing lines etc. created a foundation for the identification of the conglomerate. This guidance reached all companies. Eliel Saarinen's Kalevala influenced logo was moved to history in 1975. Oy Lohja Ab and ”the matrix of success” were created, where each yellow segment described one operation sector of the company - the diamond was connected to electronics and others were connected to construction.
When the Winter ink unit became a part of Lohja in 1981, they allowed us to create a distinctive personality that communicated leadership: a rewarded corporate visual identity. I made it by draining ink colours - the chance created themes for every need. Later, it was owned by Sicpa.
TAMGLASS OY
When Oy Kyro Ab's owner families bought Tamglass Oy in 1981, it was the beginning of a Finnish success story. It was completed with the purchase of Tecnomen in 1985. I know that the primus motor was “the last Finnish, true factory owner” Kai Matikainen, who had earlier guided Nokian Paperi and Kyro into success. The appearance of the brand was stale, and the spirit resembled the look of war machines.
It is not enough that you have the world's best technique, if it does not look like that and you are not taking it above all others. That was my starting point when designing the identification for Tamglass. I joined the end products of glass technology into the logo, the straight and curved safety glass. The colour was glassy blue and Finnish. I made the logo as assertive as the glass oven consisting of modules. The most significant change designed for the identity and the total image was the exception product design at a foundry.
Some engineers were wondering, what is the sense of investing on new logos and machine signs, or placing new metal sheets on machines to create blue-yellow-grey surfaces to be painted. After the first world exhibition, nobody was questioning anything anymore. The welcome was a success. The next stage was to boost the image of the works and operation environment of the company. This is an essential factor, because international clients who come to the factory to see the machines and plants see always the machines which are also used for providing the training for the buyer. They created the world's leading safety glass forum, Glass Performance Days.
The themes used in all communication and sales materials were designed using the end products of the machines - straight or curved safety glass sheets. The main pictures of marketing never showed machines or nuts like the competitors did but they included cities, space views etc. In one of them we realised our wildest ideas together with photographer Markku Alatalo. I defined that all print products should have high gloss lacquer always when there was glass in the images.
Tamglass is a textbook example of the Total Branding process. It renewed everything, even the ISO certification. There was a time when Tamglass bought all its competitors in the world and today it is Glaston that rules the glass world.
”The brand is not created only by advertising but operating in a special manner. It is not made by companies but people.”
- Pentti Pilve