Carefree Insulations Limited
Brand Identity refresh Case Study
BREIF: To refresh a previously designed visual identity for a Thermal Insulations Company based in Essex that wanted to look modern and professional while not looking overly formal or old fashioned.
Requirements – Visual Identity – Brand Direction – Presentations – Social Media Templates – Signage – Vehicle Graphics
Design Overview
One of my first-ever independent clients — Carefree Insulations Ltd — got back in touch looking to update the look of their brand along with their vans and signage.
What started as a refresh quickly turned into a full visual identity revamp, including the development of a new brand direction and a pitch document for the business, we agreed that a fresh approach would better reflect the company’s professionalism and service offering.
Like most designers, I’m always thinking about how I’d tweak past work — and this was a great opportunity to do just that. One of the main changes we made was updating the colour palette. Bradley felt the original blue was too dark and heavy, and I agreed it was time to modernise the icon too.
After exploring several design routes, we landed on a brighter, fresher palette and a new, simplified icon that subtly represents what Carefree does best: thermal insulation for pipework. The new colours were carefully selected to work seamlessly with the company’s existing fleet of gunmetal vans, ensuring visual consistency across all touchpoints.
Designing the Logo & Visual Identity
The Icon is designed to represent the cross section of a pipe, Red to show the pipe keeping the internal heat in, whilst the external surface of the pipe is cool and safe to touch which is represented by white of blue depending on the background the logo is placed on. The challenge for this brand was maintaining the professional feel without becoming too corporate and the choice of palette helps to facilitate that, the punchy red and cool blue which are boosted by the supporting gunmetal and whites, gives the brand a modern contemporary look whilst maintaining a professional feel.
One challenge was incorporating the businesses pre existing vans, which are gun metal grey, rather than simply key lining the logo and text on the van, an angular blue and red design element was introduced, this element would house items like the “C” icon, keeping it grounded on it main brand colour, this in turn allowed the gun metal to be kept and become part of the business identity. The angular design language was extended across the whole brand and used to give the vans, pitch materials and overall brand, a cohesive, professional look.
All in all, I’m really proud of how the updated identity turned out — Carefree looks sharper, more modern, and more aligned with the quality of their service.
The Client was presented with a full brand identity book that covered all that the brand would need going forward, including the logo family, fonts, palette, execution examples and social media templates and guidelines.
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