Branding: Nautilus Construction
In a (sea) shell: coastal vibes, dedicated craft, excellent service, solid relationships.
Over the past ten years, Jahlel Hunter worked his way up from driving the truck to becoming a partner in a family-led construction company. He learned all the ins and outs of running a general contracting firm. The desire to be the master of his destiny, his background in business, management, and sales, and his trusted network of quality sub-contractors led him here. It made it the right time to launch Nautilus Construction and develop an apt branding identity. As there are many construction companies, it was essential to carefully craft this branding system as a unique shell amongst the sea.
Brand Clarity First
With a solid name and a clear vision for the logo, Jahlel was eager to jump in and move forward with building the brand. But before we started to think about logos and colors, we entered an intensive discovery phase using our Clearly Branded Process. Here we created alignment and meaning around the Nautilus brand, answered many important questions, and took a good look at current turbulent times.
What We Learned
We quickly learned that although the world seems to have come to a stillstand at the beginning of a global pandemic, construction is not slowing down. On the contrary, now might be the best time to enter this market.
We also discovered that Jahlel’s big desire is to help people. Help them to improve their home and life and to navigate this foreign undertaking of home remodeling with genuine care and full transparency. Therefore, it was important to apply the founder’s nurturing personality traits also to the brand personality.
Impact
Nautilus Construction took off from the get-go. Despite the lack of a website (only placeholder, full site in progress) or any marketing efforts, the company books out months ahead, even an entire year. Jahlel receives so many compliments on the brand identity and feels proud and confident about his business’ appearance.
We are also proud and honored to have the Nautilus Construction logo published in the most recent LogoLounge Book 13, The World’s Premier Logo Showcase.
Services
- Brand Clarity & Strategy
- Brand Foundation
- Brand Identity
- Collateral Design
- Web Design
Clarity Report
From the Inside Out.
Since the name and concept behind the Nautilus shell gave us solid visual clues, we focused on other aspects of brand building. We discovered the big Why, mission, vision and positioning, future goals, and core values. We determined the archetypes and brand personality, philosophy, tone & voice, ideal customer, competition, opportunities, and strategic efforts to roll out the brand. All findings and outcomes were captured in the “Brand Clarity Report.”
Brand Development
Meaning and Symbology in one Little Mark.
With a solid brand foundation and a clear vision for the brand, it was finally time to create the logo and supporting brand elements. Nautilus is a high-end brand, yet its simple and youthful style does not appear pretentious. The Nautilus brand embraces a custom, elegant, and approachable design appeal that also reflects its superb work and service. To capture this aesthetic, we started with moodboards to narrow the overall look, moving on to sketches, loose logo comps, and iterations of refined logo marks.
Finally, we created a mark that embodies the brand’s foundation and is jam-packed with meaning and symbology. A shell stands for shelter and protection (home construction), adaptive growth (remodeling), and beach and ocean (La Jolla). The underlying geometry of the shell follows the Fibonacci sequence, which is considered a divine proportion and precision (craftsmanship). Our Nautilus Construction shell also incorporates rays of light (leadership and inspiring joy and warmth) and the illusion of a staircase rising upward (Improvement).
