In-House Graphic Design | Core & Main | St Louis, MO
Core & Main serves cities and towns, contractors and construction workers as the nation’s largest waterworks distributor... literally advertising to the ditch-diggers, the water treatment plant operators, the fire hydrant and sewer pipe installers; the people who make modern civilization work. It’s infrastructure; it’s dirt and mud and handshakes and long hours, hard-fought knowledge, and the occasional beer. What sets them apart from the competition is dependable expertise — knowing the local building codes inside and out, providing service and value beyond the warehouse and reliably delivering no matter the scope, time or place.
Initiative Fliers
A set of sales fliers, supporting key, national growth initiatives.
Designed to be inserted in a folder by the sales team according to individual customer needs, two or more of these fliers may end up in the same folder.
A key design component was producing them as a cohesive and related unit but with a varying layout to avoid a repetitive look.
Trade Show Collateral
Fliers, ads and banners developed as platinum sponsors of the American Fire Sprinkler Association convention and exhibit in Washington,
Supporting Business Verticals
HDPE fusible pipe is a fast-growing market segment with wide and diverse applications for not only water infrastructure projects, but also within the mining, landfill and energy industries.
Providing sales collateral for the company’s business verticals is an integral part of helping grow the bottom line.
Below left: National line card with regional contacts
Below right: Local line card for a sales representative in Texas showing state locations and the single rep’s information and specialty.
Individual rental and sales cards for McElroy machines (left) and state-level sales cards for the same product and service line.
Above: A piece focusing on the niche needs of landfills.
Below: A set of trade show banners for HDPE fusible piping sales, service and rental. Slightly different versions of the same banner can allude to water, chemical or mining applications.
Event Promotion
Fliers developed for local branches to promote their own customer appreciation events. These can range from a day on the racetrack or golf course to gourmet dinners. A similar layout is used to announce store openings in new locations, both in print and email and on social media.
Logo Development: Core Competencies
The internal training and development team needed a way to internally brand the company’s standards used to assess and improve employee performance, determine career advancement, and suggest skill development.
They founded the “Core Competencies,” four “Success Principles” describing skill areas broken out across four defined career levels in the company.
In creating the new Core Competencies mark, I took the company’s rounded pipe theme and the idea of aiming for outcomes to create a layered “target,” divided into four parts to echo the skill and labor divisions.
There are color and width variations as well as overlap in the mark, reflecting variations in training and skill levels throughout the company. Seen together, the levels all work in harmony as a whole.
The full mark (below) as a cohesive unit expressing the four employee divisions and skill sets.
The condensed mark (bottom left) allows for the mark to appear in smaller spaces by centering the signature target in the center of the letter C.
The lettermark (bottom right) is the most condensed form, with two overlapping C’s and the target, all aligned on the X/Y axes.
Corporate Collateral
New stationery was needed after the re-brand (below), so the pipe theme was incorporated throughout.
(Bottom) The Global Water Solutions brochure serves an international audience and covers the company’s main strengths and niche initiatives in one piece.
(Below) This graphic was designed to introduce the company’s new website to employees and customers via announcements on LinkedIn and Twitter.
The visuals and wording makes a play on the fact that most of the company’s product is used for underground infrastructure.
Special Events
The National Sales and Leadership Meeting is held once every two years, and top awards are given out for the highest company performers. New template options combined the company’s circle theme for the pipes they sell and the bold angles reflect the new logo. (Below) The National Sales and Leadership Awards for District Award, District Manager Award and President’s Choice Award
(Below) New designs for the holiday cards developed for the sales teams to hand out to customers. One reinforces the new brand identity, while the other uses the company’s most iconic product as a stand in to create memorable and unique holiday snowflakes.
Special Promotional Material
Core & Main uses fire hydrant cookie jars as a promotional piece with customers around the holiday season. These are often collected by long-time customers, with favored designs often becoming prized pieces.
I designed the fire hydrant cookie jars for the 2020 edition.
