For thirty years now, the Corporate Design Preis (Corporate Design Award, CDP) has been the only competition focused exclusively on the creation of brand identities. Because it is an important indicator for companies shopping for a creative agency, its relevance extends far beyond the design community. In this year's competition the branding and design agency Peter Schmidt Group made a strong showing, taking home five awards.

 

The big winner this year was the corporate design Peter Schmidt Group created for Mehler Systems, a manufacturer of protective equipment for police and special forces, with its headquarters in Fulda, Germany. It was honored not only in the “Corporate Design Relaunch” category but also for Logo Design and Corporate Signaletics. The team headed by Creative Director Ulrich Aldinger devised a flexible grid system based on an abstract interpretation of how impact protection works, then derived all the design elements from it – including not just the logo and icons but the texture of the actual products themselves, which in turn improves their functionality. “The brand identity is not only consistent across all media, it even extends to the product design,” Aldinger said. In addition to better handling, the texture of the products also provides a subtle way for Mehler to communicate its brand. “In the security sector, the only logos displayed are those of the emergency or security teams themselves. Here, the texture becomes a mark of quality that is immediately recognized by professionals in the industry.”

 

 

Corporate fonts are part of a holistic branding system

 

In addition to Mehler Systems, two other Peter Schmidt Group projects received awards: the Packaging Design for the cosmetic products of SBT Skin Biology Therapy and the Corporate Font for Knauf in the Typography category. “The development of custom corporate fonts has become an integral part of most of our corporate design projects,” said Managing Partner Lukas Cottrell. “This is an integrated service that we provide in-house, which results in outstanding typographic solutions that are seamlessly integrated into design systems and enable brand-defining communication across all media and platforms. Besides Knauf, we have also created a new font for our client E.ON, that refers to the strong character of the company's logo.”