Unusuals

In 2020, Sigma Rail was at a crossroads, facing many questions about its future. They were participating in several acceleration and open innovation programs to help their automation software for railway infrastructure maintenance shine, and that's how we met. By participating in these programs as mentors, we were able to delve deeper and discover there was much more to it. Their brand didn't reflect their true identity.

As always, we sought their core value, what they were passionate about and what set them apart, to build from there. They have always been driven to contribute to optimizing the performance of large infrastructures by applying artificial intelligence, along with a level of involvement and closeness rarely seen among industry experts.

DETECT THE UNUSUAL TO BECOME EXCEPTIONAL

A team that works to detect anomalies and unusual situations is, in itself, unusual: it integrates into the circumstances, is approachable, transparent, educational, and always aims to facilitate change. This idea of encountering something out of the ordinary is what the brand concept is built upon and what determined its new name: Unusuals. In this way, we also helped them detach from a specific sector – railway – and thus bring their value and mission to other verticals. Brand strategy serving business and purpose.

From Reality to Brand Identity

From the moment we first saw their product, it was clear that their visual identity had to originate from it. The very images processed by the software were the perfect starting point, faithfully reflecting the 'what' and 'how' of Unusuals. This world of gradients and movement leads us directly to scanning, analysis, and artificial intelligence. It's a common and highly effective approach: we take the essential elements of the company's day-to-day operations, partially decontextualize them, and develop a unique visual system that evokes all the meanings surrounding the brand.

A Continuously Scanning Logo

The eight letters of Unusuals give rise to eight shapes that emerge from the distortion of each wordmark type, simulating being scanned by the visual intelligence software. These shapes help us generate a dynamic logo ready to be the banner for the brand's entire unique visual system.

A dynamic logo with eight phases or stations that, in turn, allow us to represent the brand statically when needed.

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Visual System

Every element of the visual system repeatedly returns to the imagery of artificial intelligence, rigor, and the team's human touch.

Once again, we focus on the sustainability of the brand's visual universe so that our work endures consistently. This involves empowering the team with simple solutions that allow them to create new proprietary materials. The system helps create these unique images by combining a couple of photographic treatment decisions and following a few composition guidelines.

Unusuals now has a visual narrative that they have already embraced. They feel it's their own from day one, and that's the best thing that can happen to us when working with a brand and a team.

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NEW WEBSITE FOR UNUSUALS

In alignment with the founders, marketing team, and business objectives, we aimed for an informative website focused on consideration and validation, rather than a direct sales or conversion tool. We helped the team identify and organize everything they wanted to communicate, ensuring it was clear and effective. We designed the navigation, structure, and digital expression of their visual identity, which is also applicable to their product. With this foundation, we took charge of the front-end development to deliver a ready and active website, enabling them to maintain focus on their daily operations (undoubtedly one of the main advantages of having an in-house tech team).

We built the Unusuals website by combining a series of tools, frameworks, and approaches:

• We followed JAMStack principles to ensure the best possible development experience, optimal website performance, and scalability.
• We used the Gatsby framework, an open-source framework that allows us to work with various data sources, optimize assets, and generate static pages.
• And we worked with DatoCMS because it provides a very user-friendly content management system and allows us to integrate all website components.
• Soluto Design System, always. One of our in-house projects to continue expanding development possibilities and opportunities.

Daily website operations

The CMS is designed to be simple and intuitive, featuring a component library that helps the team configure their pages, section order, and SEO autonomously, easily, and quickly. We set up a staging environment for them to preview changes before publishing, and their reaction when we showed them how the CMS worked couldn't have been better. We integrated Arengu to manage contact forms via the website and implemented a structured text system to make blog writing convenient and ensure all brand-defined styles are maintained. Everything was developed and integrated with real and constant website usage in mind.

The brand is reflected everywhere, including the front-end

From the technology team, we translated the concept of 'scanning' to the website through animated headers, featured sections, and an animated logo. Since we didn't want this to overload the website and it was crucial to ensure a fluid user experience, we implemented two layers: one with static silhouette elements, and another with video animations. To maintain this principle of lightweight website files, this video is always the same but with a shift in framing. Result: we achieved diverse 'scans' by playing with minimal elements.

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RESULTS

What we first saw, even before the brand launched, was a very positive reception from the team, which immediately translated into an increased sense of belonging. We wanted to create a brand for the people of Unusuals, and it seems we succeeded.

Moving forward, we're very eager to see how this new phase of renewed energy and a more open business approach (expanding into new sectors) benefits from both this new brand and its new website. And we're excited to keep moving forward. Detecting the unusual to become exceptional.