5,000 designers — One branding design

Through its Research & Development unit, the new international company Speira is developing the innovative recycling technologies that the aluminum industry urgently needs to finally become sustainable. To communicate this globally crucial goal, Speira needed a branding design that clearly and confidently communicates the core vision of the new company: Redefining the limits.

The challenge. The all-new company wanted to go to market within nine weeks. And: All 5,000 employees had to be significantly involved in the development of the new branding design. A challenge that conventional creative workflows could not meet.

Based on the new brand strategy, a co-creation process with Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence, was designed by GREYgermany in which the AI learned in just four days what the new brand identity should mean at its core for all employees. From this, Watson developed a so-called "virtual logo" (a description of the core of the new brand experience), which then provided the basis for the design team's creation of the new identity.

“As it was a key requirement of Speira that humans retain the control over all relevant decisions at all times, we designed a co-creation process with the AI, in which the machine provides us with the input for the design process, but at no point takes over the process itself.” – Patrick Reichert-Young, Executive Creative Director @ GREYgermany.

The resulting logo represents the Circular Economy and reflects Speira's product: aluminum coiled on a roll. At the same time, it communicates the impact that the brand's innovative recycling technologies will have on the industry (like expanding waves). The logo utilizes the moiré effect: Through optical illusion, the logo - even in print - is always moving, pulsating, and striving to visually transcend its limitations in a lively and expanding way.

Derived from the logo, the dynamic "fluid limits"-design-element visualizes (even when the logo is not visible) always recognizable and clear the brand - and the vision that drives it: Redefining the limits.

"The majority of branding projects in recent years that have used these technologies would do just fine without AI. What's new about the design for Speira is that without the co-creation with Watson, we would never have managed to actually involve 5,000 employees in the identity design process and still be able to launch a completely new international brand after only nine weeks.This makes the project a blueprint for all branding projects that want to realize real participation of all employees under enormous time pressure.” (Reichert-Young)