Share Follow us on Twitter

Cross Group

The Cross Group date back to the mid 19th century, when two member's of the Cross family established a carriage and stable hire company in the Irish city of Cork.

Through continued success in the 1920’s, Cross’s Garage Ltd extended their business to the sale of ice boxes and mechanical domestic refrigerators. Cross continues to grow and flourish, becoming one of the leading hire companies in Ireland. The core of the business is still founded in commercial and industrial refrigeration and air conditioning.

The Cross Group decided it was time to update and unify their current branding, strengthening them further in the market, and against their competitors. With several sectors now established within the Cross Group, the client felt that it was important to create a strong yet unified brand for all of the group sectors.

Refresh & Strengthen

Branding

The Cross brand already had an establish brand mark. It was important to Cross that any approach to move away from the original design was gradual as the brand had value with existing customers and suppliers. It was felt by both Cross and Planet that a refresh of the existing logo should be undertaken as a renovation rather than an overhaul.

Planet approached the project by keeping the existing mark but moved it forward by creating more air around the icon, and replaced the dated font with a cleaner alternative. This approach immediately gave the corporate identity a fresher look, modernising the brand and expanding readability. It also enabled more scope in future on application.

Through natural evolution, it was felt by both parties that it would be best to separate the individual sectors of the Cross group, creating an individual identity for each sector, and placing these brands within the newly formed 'Cross Group'. The recently developed identity for Cross was applied to all of the sectors, segregated only by colour, which kept all of the Group brand in unison.

Website

The largest project to date for Cross has been the complete over-haul of the design and function of the Group website. Planet worked closely with the client to develop a series of websites individually branded to each division, whilst retaining solidarity within the corporate identity.

The project began with the Group Portal, taking the corporate colours and typeface and applying a modern format, bringing together a more cohesive look to Cross. This approach was then applied across the remaining division websites.

Literature

The final design of all the Cross literature, reflects the model of the Group portal and division sites. This feel has been applied across advertising, a group folder and insert package, and most recently, the 2010 calendar.