Capitol Aluminum
What
Brand Refresh
Role
Product Design Co-op
Industry
Construction
Tool
Figma, Adobe Products
Timeline
10 Weeks, Summer 2024
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Redefine the brand’s direction with brand documentation, print, graphics, and website to better align with two core audiences
PROBLEM
Selected for a co-op position to redesign a local construction company, I worked closely with Bonnie (Marketing), Gail (CEO), and the sales team to deliver work on tight timelines.
01
Design System
Over 10 weeks, I developed a comprehensive system spanning print and digital, focusing on accessible, replicable design.
02
Ownership
I owned the entire life cycle from research to development, making sure everyone was in the loop every step of the way
my main question
How can I transform this company’s messaging into simple and clear?
COMPANY RESEARCH
Most of what I found was through asking how Capitol secured deals, what worked, what could be better, and who they compared themselves to/who they wanted to be.
"Our users are so different"
They had spec-driven professionals (builders) vs. benefit-focused decision makers (building owners). It was hard to find a middle ground for the two.
"We know this works.."
Their strengths lied in their ability to be a full service contracting company that can offer discounts through TIPS but didn't specify or show that well in their marketing.
"Here's our competition"
While they didn't have a clear system, by sharing who they looked up to, it helped me understand the industry and what good marketing looks like.
WEEK 1 - 3
Redefining, not refining
From evolving the logo to a redefined color system, every decision was made to highlight products.
LOGO
An opportunity to keep her dad's legacy
Overall, Gail wanted to maintain the existing design direction. I kept the structure largely the same while refining it for readability -> grounding the building, adjusting spacing, and updating the text with a sans serif made custom through refined stroke, leading, and spacing.
OG Lockup
Iteration 3
Final Iteration
COLOR
Cool Blue
Supporting colors = different product spheres
Their main construction is in cooling down buildings so we chose a stoic blue, but they also have products that save energy and retain heat, so green and warm reds/oranges were included as supporting brand colors.
Pantone only
Because a lot of their work includes paint, we centered their color system around Pantone colors.
WEEK 3-6
Print + Graphics
Keeping in mind their revenue revolves around print, we stuck to a longer 3 week schedule for custom icons, flyers, cards, and a booklet, all of which would be wrapped into a sales kit.
OPPORTUNITY
PRINT_1
Booklet
Showcase all our skills and expertise
We emphasized our position as a small yet expert Ohio-based business, one of the only teams offering a fully integrated process from design to installation.
Prove to contractors why we're a good fit
Knowing that contractors value how uncommon it is to work with a company that manages the entire process, we intentionally built a benefits section showcasing streamlined workflows, reduced paperwork, past client experiences, and funding support.
Outer + Opening Panel
One of their key taglines
Inner +Side Panel
PRINT_2
Leaflets
Quick information for anyone with a budget
Think superintendents, mayors, anyone who needs to scan the best benefits and bang for their buck. I made a mix of ready-for-print as well as a mix of templates that were easy to replicate and populate.
Specific and Universal appeal
I created several Project Spotlights highlighting past work designed for specific environments like schools with priorities around security, durability, and low maintenance through winter break and summer months, alongside broader prints with more universal appeal, as well as general leaflets promoting all of what Capitol does.
PRINT_3
Half-page Mailers
Templates for small chunks of information
Capitol had a wealth of information about budgets, color, and materials, but it wasn’t being used in their print or website materials. I developed designs which organized the insights from our meetings into clear, accessible templates for the sales team to use.
PRINT_4
Business cards
For conventions and government contracts
Every year, Capitol goes to many sales conventions for municipalities and government contracts. Business cards were essential.
PRINT_5
Envelopes
GRAPHICS_1
Custom Icons
Streamlining company concepts
Capitol used multiple icons to represent the same concepts. To improve clarity, we found 24 individual concepts around attributes and benefits of Capitol, with 12 being the most popular.
Bulletproof
Blast Resistant
All Weather
Security
Waterproof
Aluminum
Color
Material
Timeline
Full Team
Certification
Award
Construction
Location
WEEK 6-10
Designed to be templatized and structured for future development hand-off
WEB USER FLOW
Simplify the navigational experience
Nested information and less correlation
Information and pages were hidden under navigation that wasn't clear, and structured in a way that was unintuitive.
I was able to condense the information and cut 3 pages.
WEB DESIGN
Highlighting features
A home page with better categorization of products.
All product categories showcase projects and clearly display the amount of products in each category.
A category page to help users quickly compare options and find their best fit.
The highlight of these pages was transforming dense documents into a clear graph anyone can understand.
learning
This experience shaped my care for products and thoughtfulness for the people using them
Thank you
Thank you to Bonnie and Gail for making this summer great and having so much trust and faith in me!
The importance of communication
I learned to communicate with my team, but even more, I learned to see design differently, not just as pretty graphics but a medium for connection and communication between company, product and client.
Living, breathing design
Over the summer, I worked part time for College of Science @ RIT and full time here at Capitol. I lived and breathed design. Constantly creating products that would actually be used outside the classroom expanded my capacity; I became more thoughtful about the products and the people interacting with them, both the company and consumers.