Jake Vaillancourt approached me concerning the branding for his revolutionary new start up that would greatly impact the blasting industry. It produced a faster and higher quality result, produced next to no harmful bi-product (an issue that has plagued the blasting industry for it's entire history, and was sourced from a previously non-recyclable waste stream making it sustainable to create and reuse. For such a special product, I was tasked with creating a brand that breathed new life into the market just as it had. After reviewing the competition and what their audience was looking for, I provided three different directions for artwork. After debating where each would position them in the market, they chose a streamlined and modern approach.

The folks at 10X were very excited about their new tech, so writing the values and goals were very easy. With it a skeptical market that had been duped before, they just wanted to focus on what they could do before pushing the safeness of the product as well as the positive environmental impact it could bring to the industry. I was tasked with writing their mission statement, product description, values, and goals in this section.

Colors

We needed to develop a fresh color array for the brand that stood out from the competition and emphasized the new approach to the industry. We settled on a blue sky color, grounded in solid black, and a cutting white. For our gradient, I chose a way to electrify our powerful blue.

Type

When we were choosing our typefaces, we wanted one foot in industrial, one foot in new tech. Norwester met our needs for the industrial header, and Titillium supported it as a clean, modern body typeface.

Logo

In developing the logo, I created three options. The first was a phoenix logo that was a nod to the waste stream born again as a new product. The second was a sword piercing the bullseye of a target; a reference to a statement by one of the owners that 10X was like shooting swords instead of arrows. And the third was a simple word mark with a stylized X.

It was an absolutely pleasure working with the folks at 10X Engineered Materials on their brand identity. The project really taught me how much I loved developing the philosophical frame work of a company and tying that to the artwork that defines them. If you're interested in getting your company's brand identity done, please reach out and we'll get cracking.