creating a new brand to increase familiarity & trust with a new custom indoor mapping service.

NiwTwin is a new turnkey service, offering open format Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF) archives creating comprehensive, indoor maps with all of your data integrated into every aspect for any business application in need. Unlock the power of Internet of Things throughout your indoor space.

Through NiwTwin’s open format removes the ambiguity around owning your IMDF archives. Unlike proprietary formats that can’t be reused or integrated with other applications, NiwTwin quickly delivers your precise IMDF that is 100% yours to use in any capacity.

The problem

The SVP of Geospatial and I started this branding project like many great brands start: is the URL name available? I kid, but we did snap up as many addresses as we could. Deciding on a name involved many stakeholders’ perspectives. It boiled down to one sentiment: should we play it safe or shoot for the moon? This continued to be quite the debate throughout this project and it was up to us to show them why putting real thought and purpose into the creation of this brand would provide an authentic foundation for us to differentiate ourselves in the market. We weren’t just creating maps, we were creating 100% accurate digital twins of indoor spaces.

Because what is now known as ‘NiwTwin’ is a company under the parent company of EVS, we began to create concepts on the ‘play it safe’ side with the name ‘EVS GEO.’ After several design iterations, working directly with the SVP, we came up with a collection of strong idea possibilities that would help drive the shape of the rest of the brand.

The solution

We first began researching maps and map elements. The contrast in how they look from the mechanical typefaces to the organic lines was very intriguing. Could we adapt these items to repurpose for our new service? EVS GEO revolved heavily around topographic lines and how they might interact within different shapes. We wanted to tie in the idea of geography as well as maps. We also recreated a mechanical typeface based on a vintage camera lens.

The final concept we presented to stakeholders involved a strong emphasis on “GEO” while it interacted with a map marker that included implied topographic lines representing the world. It was decided that it would be best to focus less on “EVS.” We wanted to alleviate confusion that people would think this service was only in the warehouse industry (where most EVS business takes place). In an effort to separate “EVS GEO” from the rest of the EVS suite, we decided to downplay “EVS” in a subtle topographic line.

After we had decided that we explored EVS GEO concepts sufficiently, we began to turn our sites on NiwTwin. The idea of ‘NiwTwin’ came from the term ‘digital twin,’ which is a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process. The way that NiwTwin is spelled and visually represented is a nod to digital twin representations which mirror the object needed to be digitally represented. The ’niw’ is representative of mirroring the word ‘twin’ while also capturing the idea that this is a fresh, new service. It is your new twin.

While we knew how we wanted the treatment of the word to look, we went through several design iterations, creating many different concepts to present in an effort to help guide how the brand will be handled in the future.

The final NiwTwin concept presented to stakeholders combined a mirrored ’n’ and regular ’t’ that is implied in the negative space of the ’n.’ Not only is the mark representative of our original concept, it also appears to be an implied building, or two building next to each other.

Another element that we found intriguing throughout all concepts was the idea of a dot. The dot is small but can be so impactful. The dot in EVS GEO was used as our secondary mark that sat just above the word GEO, creating a certain weight and sturdiness to the the overall mark.

The dot treatment in NiwTwin came from the tittle above each ‘i’ and was geared toward the idea of a twin. The dots are the only part of the logotype that sit just above the x-height, creating a contrasting separation. The impact of the dot was something we continually returned to.

Finally, we presented both EVS GEO and NiwTwin back to back with stakeholders. The NiwTwin logo was so strong, the stakeholders could not ignore it. The final piece in this decision was when it was explained that ‘NiwTwin’ sets us apart as a digital twin company and NOT a geospatial company who makes indoor maps. NiwTwin became the name (and logo) of the company.

After the decision was made, I quickly came up with a quick reference identity guide. In about a week’s time, we had a great foundation to move the brand forward, including all logos, minimum sizes, clear space around logos, colors, all type guidelines, and finally brand messaging, which was done by working with the Marketing Manager.