Fluxwerx Illumination

CHALLENGE

Imagine this: the day that a technology comes along that allows cars to fly. Something that transcends anything we can imagine today— truly breakthrough technology. There will be companies that race to catch up to new market trends. The truly innovative ones, though, will redefine what a car is.

Fluxwerx is an example of the latter. The innovation: redefining traditional LED lights from existing, commonly accepted form factors for commercial and office general lighting luminaires (industry speak for office, educational and healthcare light fixtures). Fluxwerx looked at the promise of LED in terms of efficiency, space, size and technology to reinvent what general-purpose lighting can deliver and look like. By all accounts, they’ve succeeded in disrupting the industry.

As the seeds of this innovation began to form, the founding partners sought out and challenged Industrial Brand to formalize their brand positioning, creating an identity suited to the vision they had for this revolutionary new company.

APPROACH

Appealing directly to the requirements (and inspirations) of architects and designers, we knew that the approach had to be design centric. We began the work by guiding the company through a brand strategy session. The core of the solution became centered around supporting an ideal balance, similar to the promise of the products themselves: optical performance, energy efficiency and design. Additionally, we developed corporate and product nomenclature for the planned and future product launches.

The identity is a modern evocation of precision and technical prowess, with strong linear lines and a simplicity of form. Featuring a generous amount of space, the result is a sophisticated and crafted look that sets up and completely supports product expectations.

Production of corporate stationery and an 80-page product catalogue made use of laser cutting details and strong contrasts— full colour, versus black and white imagery. Photography presented a unique challenge. One of the key advantages of LED light sources is their diminutive size, allowing for unprecedented thin profiles and see-through lenses that would be difficult to show off conventionally. The way around this problem? Breaking free of standard industry glory shots featuring products in isolation, and instead using human hands to help contextualize the scale and the otherwise unbelievably compact nature of the form factors.

The website strategy included an initial teaser website that gave way to a full-featured, responsive, CMS-based online presence. Online orders were made simple through robust, dynamic online product configuration, specification and an ordering system. Designed, built and launched together with our development partners at Forge & Smith, this system allows Fluxwerx to operate at a benchmark-setting standard for the industry, with rapid quotation and order turnaround.

To give Fluxwerx total control over their new brand, all brand information, language, identity and marketing content was packaged and delivered in our secure, online management tool— Managed Brand.

RESULTS

From the moment the company founders struck out on their own, the industry was abuzz with speculation, anticipation and intrigue. Great things were expected to come of this venture.

“The result is perfect harmony of message, feel and look. The product is incredible and elicits emotional responses from the design profession, and the innovative business card design, high-end 80 page brochure, and interactive and responsive website all exude the same quality and innovative look and feel. Together, we exceeded the huge expectations of the marketplace.” — Tim Berman, President

Only recently launched, Fluxwerx has garnered incredible industry attention and praise. The end result: orders are taking off from architectural and interior design practices, and heightened media attention. Already specified by architecture firms such as Gensler, Overland Partners, Acquilano Leslie, Stantec, Dialog, ZGF, Smith Carter, and ARUP amongst others, the growth trajectory for Fluxwerx will be steep. Anticipating this, the work we did allows the company to appear established and credible right out of the gate, yet with room for an unlimited amount of growth.

Update: An expanded catalogue, a Red Dot Product Design Award, and the successful sale of the company to a Montreal manufacturer. Hear the story behind building the brand that helped take them there in under five years.