The VdS brand architecture: from two senders to one
The VdS brand architecture brings order to what had grown side by side over the years. The starting point was therefore not a design question, but a decision: who is actually speaking here? Each business area had found its own way of reaching its audiences. In the market, however, none of this added up to a shared picture. The analysis led to a clear order — with a VdS umbrella brand, four sub-brands and one endorsed brand.
Decision
After two comes one: the VdS umbrella brand
The first and most important call was made early on. From then on, VdS would appear under a single logo. Of the two existing marks, one prevailed and the other was dropped. This did not call for a compromise, but for a decision.
The VdS umbrella brand thus became the binding bracket across all business areas. That sounds simple, yet it brings everything else with it. Because a sender needs rules for how other brands relate to it. This is exactly what the VdS brand architecture provides.
Architecture
The VdS brand architecture on three levels
The architecture works on three levels. At the top sits the VdS umbrella brand. Below it follow four sub-brands: HOME, GeoVeris, SecIoT and SecurIP. On the third level sits PROVE as an endorsed brand, always with the addition “powered by VdS”.
These sub-brands were not brands before. They were business areas that VdS ran internally but barely made visible on the outside. The architecture gave them a face. Each area now appears under its own name while carrying the same sender.
The wordmarks are typographically modified. This creates a link to the respective field of activity without the brand falling out of the system. A separate rule applies to special markets: for China, a brand was developed that identifies VdS as the sender through a tagline alone. The principle can be continued. When a new business area arrives, it receives a brand under the same rules.
Analysis
How two strands became one brief
The corporate design came first. Soon after, and on that basis, work on the corporate website began as well. One strand clarified who VdS is in the market. The other, what users are looking for on the website. The answers met in the VdS brand architecture.
A separate analysis phase followed for the web presence. Its outcome was a brief. It set out the requirements against which every later decision could be measured: from finding content to maintaining it in the backend.
One insight shaped everything that followed. The content existed in very different forms and had to be ordered first. Order therefore came before design.
With that, the foundation was in place. The VdS brand architecture established who is speaking. What that sender looks like was decided in the next step.