Lapmaster International

BRAND IDENTITY, COLLATERAL MATERIALS

— Great clients with a funny name.

THE CHALLENGE

Modernizing a logo from the fifties, while still communicating what it is they do. (and no, it does not involve dancing)

THE PROCESS

"Lapping" actually comes from the acronym L.A.P., which stands for Loose Abrasive Process. It is a form of polishing which is done with disks that are held in place by rings —hence all the circles in the logo. I had to find a way to keep the rings, but make them more dynamic and contemporary.

SOME FACTS

Lapmaster© has manufacturing plants in five countries, and all of them have adopted the current logo and branding guidelines.
Lapmaster© has incorporated several subsidiaries, all of whose logos I have redesigned to be in line with theirs.
The company merged with a second company (Wolters) and their name was merged into the existing logo, LAPMASTER WOLTERS.

Polishing or "lapping", involves using grinding and then polishing discs in finer and finer succession, until you have something really shiny. The disks are held in place by polishing rings, which are integral to the lapping process. It was important for the client to retain that imagery, but modernize the look. Here is their logo today.

An update to the Lapmaster-Wolters logo!
Lapmaster has acquired many companies over the past decade, and in order to unify their brand, they are looking to bring all their disparate manufacturers under one umbrella. They were in a time crunch and I was asked to help out. Below is the new logo that will be rolled out.

There may be a transition phase before all brands are brought under one logo, so in the meantime, a possible solution would be to blend the existing logos into the new brand look. Below are some possible options.

Here is a little peak into the process. This is where they were at when they handed over the project, a bit of a mash-up of the existing logo with some font explorations.

These are some of the exploration pages that were considered.

These are some of the different disks used in lapping (polishing). Who knew?

Below are samples of the company's business cards, letterhead, envelopes and various product and shipping labels. It would be remiss of me not to mention that the logo was slightly different in this set of pieces (the LAPMASTER name is more left into the rings than it is today). At a later point, the client was more comfortable sliding the name over and revealing the rings, which worked out well, since if you stared at it long enough, it started to spell "Slapmaster", and no one needs that.

Below are some scans of previous Lapmaster logo from the fifties.

The logo was translated to every medium, including steel, where it was engraved and affixed to all their machines. Here is an image of the new logo on a machine, next to the old one.

Over the past ten years, Lapmaster has often acquired new companies and brought them under their branding umbrella. It was my task to redesign the companies' logos to be in line with the Lapmaster branding, while still maintaining the communication of what they did. Below are re-designs and explorations for Bates and Barnes, as well as the current Lapmaster email signature, incorporating all three.

Much of my current work revolves around designing their annual catalogs, which contain everything from giant pieces of machinery to pocket-sized testers, and prices for everything. Below are a few pages from the catalog as well as some recent covers.

One of my first assignments was to create product brochures for every piece of their machinery. There were close to 40 to start out with, and it has kept growing since then. Below is an early sample of a 2-page brochure.

Two years ago Lapmaster merged with the Wolters company in the UK. At that time I was asked to work with their in-house designers to revamp the brochure layouts. Below is a sample of the updated brochures.

Sometimes a new product would require an in-depth brochure. In addition to layout, I was asked to do quite a bit of Photoshop work on this project, getting the images in line with the rest of the Lapmaster photography. Below is a sample of the Hamai machine, which was sent out to several countries. I always called it "The Octopus".

Every so often, the client needs me to help out on promotional materials, as well as trade show banners and posters.

My dad was a mechanical engineer, and I loved to sift through his blueprints when i was little. I was more than happy to redraw many of Lapmaster's machinery schematics.

Here are some early logo explorations.