Atlas Brand Refresh

Introduction

Atlas was recognisable to its customers and invisible to everyone else. The refresh had to modernise the identity without making existing clients feel the company had changed hands.

Finding What Was Worth Keeping

We started by asking customers what they pictured when they heard the name. The marque came back almost universally; nearly everything around it did not. That answer set the boundary for the whole project.

Rebuilding Around the Marque

We kept the marque and rebuilt everything around it — a wider type palette, a colour system that survives being printed on a lorry, and rules loose enough that the internal team could apply them.

• Colour was specified for the worst substrate first, then relaxed for screen, rather than the other way round.
• The type palette carries three weights, which is enough for hierarchy and few enough to remember.
• Guidelines lead with examples and keep the rules underneath them, so the common case needs no reading.

Sequencing the Rollout

The rollout ran over two quarters, starting with the touchpoints customers see least, so the team could correct course before the change reached the fleet.

• Internal documents and templates went first, where a mistake costs nothing to reprint.
• Customer-facing digital followed, once the type and colour rules had been used in anger.
• Vehicle livery went last, when the system had stopped changing.

Conclusion

No customer asked whether the company had been sold, which was the quiet success criterion. The in-house team has applied the system to two new service lines without coming back to us.