Isherwood Geostructural Engineers is a consulting firm formed in 1972 by Brian Isherwood. They have been responsible for excavation support, retaining walls, slope stabilization, underpinning, and foundation design for many prominent Toronto structures including the CN Tower, Skydome Stadium (now Rogers Centre), Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Opera House, Ontario Science Centre, Pearson Airport, Art Gallery of Ontario, Don Valley Parkway, Billy Bishop Pedestrian Tunnel, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, and the Toronto Subway. Impressive right?!
Their team contacted me looking for help in modernizing their logo and creating a 50th anniversary logo lock-up. The goal was to keep some elements of the original branding, but with a fresh take. I presented several different options and the chosen design was further developed and tweaked.
Using the same orange of their original branding and a different interpretation of the “I” shape, the lines indicate a structure in the shape of an “I”, with an offset highlight beneath. The “I” is an homage to the i-beam, rather than a literal representation, and an evolution of the original logo. It can be viewed as if from below the earth (like a micropile), above the earth as the resulting superstructure, or even interpreted as looking into an open excavation at the scaffolding ladder. This symbolism meant a lot to the team in representing the work they do.
The font used for the “50” in the 50th anniversary lock-up is called Routed Gothic, and we selected this as their brand accent typeface. This style of font was requested by the Isherwood team as an homage to Leroy Lettering - a lettering style found on technical drawings from the mid-twentieth century.
The logo design is responsive, I created different variations of the logo for different use cases and sizes. I developed a colour palette to build upon and complement their classic Isherwood orange. I developed a Visual Identity Guide that outlines their new branding (a few select pages are shown here). I also designed a Squarespace website for them, modernizing all of their content in the style of the new branding.
