Western Power Sports
HardDrive
HardDrive is the sole American V-Twin division of Western Power Sports (WPS) who has been in the power sports distribution business for more than 60 years. While HardDrive recently surpassed it's 10 year mark, they're now offering more than 20,000 V-Twin products to power sports dealers nationwide.
Roles:
Creative Direction
Identity System
Graphic Design
Social Media Management
Animation
The Problem:
The Objective:
The Solution:
HardDrive was dealing with several visual inconsistencies in the marketplace across ads, packaging, social media, and the tension of being both a manufacturer and a vendor parts distributor.
To build upon and modify existing brand standards for designers, videographers, photographers, copywriters and the sales force to execute when relaying the new look and feel of the HardDrive brand.
The development of clearly defined brand standards that explained everything from typographical treatments, graphical relationships, color usage, photography styling and the brand's voice.
The Approach:
Phase 01: Audit
Audit existing visual system.
Phase 02: Survey
Develop questionnaire for perceived challenges and expectations.
Phase 03: Test
Working backward and forward to better assess scalability
Phase 04: Document
Documenting successful components for future presentation.
Typography Solution:
While there were consistent fonts used up to this point, they felt outdated and inconsistent with the modern visual standards we were working toward. We ultimately replaced Big Noodle Titling as the main font and rolled out Avenir as a more fitting font family to suit both headlines and smaller body copy.
Color Solution:
Being an American V-Twin brand, color is a very delicate area to get creative with. While a lot of colors are symbolic of widely known motorcycle gangs, this is a brand that wants no affiliation. That being said, we kept to monochromatic grayscale colors. When color is necessary they are to be muted pallets, which also draw a more vintage look and feel. The one exception to this being packaging, hence the color palette currently displayed here.
Testing and Documenting:
With the foundation to the system in place we set out testing and documenting usages that worked for a variety of applications, within a variety of media.
