Responses by Toby Ng Design.
Background: LIONOX is an inspection and consultation servicing company for the energy sector in the China-Pacific region. Its primary clientele is overseas companies who look to its expertise in its sector and its flexibility to think on both a local and international scope. The business itself has been established for many years, but the project was to give LIONOX a contemporary and relevant brand image under a new name, expressing the idea of a global perspective with local expertise.
Design thinking: Articulating the company’s nature and service, our logo for LIONOX displays an L form and a circular shape to represent the act of inspection. Following the crafted tagline “Global Perspective, Local Precision,” a larger circle is hidden within the L form that, when brought together with the smaller circle, mirrors the duality of global and local scales.
Challenges: Making the identity ultimately unique while using the simplest forms to capture LIONOX’s core mission—and for the general viewer to be able to grasp the idea behind the business. For us, treading the line between distinctive and generic is one of the problem-solving challenges that go into creating a visual identity. For LIONOX, this also required understanding a business sector that is somewhat niche and foreign to us, an understanding that added a particular challenge to the project.
Favorite details: With the LIONOX identity, the core concept is housed in the main logo, with the L form that hints at a globe and the circular shape that represents inspection. The logo itself evolved into a multitude of applications that look visually distinct. Expanding the identity while simultaneously avoiding repetition in forms is a challenge—but one that marks a successful visual identity if executed.
For LIONOX, every application added new layers and interactions to the identity system. In both physical and digital applications, we used the circle from the logo as a standalone graphic element or as a framing device while still retaining the core idea. For example, the small circle moves along the circumference of the large circle to embody worldwide access to local precision by utilizing a global perspective. We translated this to a physical application by printing the circle on the edge of a round envelope flap.
New lessons: Unlike our other projects with museum, property or hospitality clients, LIONOX was an outlier because it’s not exactly a business for the masses—apart from being B2B, the energy inspection sector, by nature, is very niche. To take on this project, we not only had to understand the business from the inside out but also what makes LIONOX unique from its competitors. For us, it was an experience to tackle a new type of audience and identify the correct tone, manner and approach for this project.
Specific project demands: We were fortunate enough to have a close working relationship with the owner of LIONOX and that they were our main contact on this project. Minimizing the tiers of people in communication helps us streamline the decision-making process and avoid conflicting comments from multiple client-side people. In any project, it’s about truly understanding the client and their goals. Being able to communicate directly with the head of LIONOX avoided any misunderstandings, and through trust, it opened up new opportunities to push boundaries.
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