A composition of contours creates a new brand device for Terradace; implying layers of complexity within the organisation and its operations, whilst alluding to the geology of the Earth.

Challenge

dps have now been picking, packing and delivering fruit since 1977, across over 40 countries. bbd’s history with dps begins with the dps website and dps logo design, the foundations of dps’ current visual identity. Based on this standing relationship, bbd were tasked to create a design (from scratch) for the holding company Terradace. The name comes from Terra (Latin for Earth) and DACE which is the initials of Paul & Neil’s (their two primary shareholders) four children. The composition had to centre around the earth, trading produce, farming, and geological investments.

Approach

Firstly, to gain a deeper understanding of the brief at hand, bbd hosted a Kick Off meeting with dps to dissect the composition they had in mind. bbd came prepared with a suite of questions, designed to get the team thinking about the logo composition, by uncovering what adjectives they thought best suited the logo on an antonym scale. 

Next our creative lead worked through various sketches for ideation of the possible logo, then 4 possible routes were attained. Alongside the winning route ‘Contours’, the following 3 routes were explored as composition logo concepts: 

Strata – Focusing on the Earth’s structure, visually representing that even dps has many layers within its own ecosystem of companies and industries.

A sense of place – Combining the concepts of geographical locations, Environmental, diversity and natural resources.

Concentric circles – Exploring the idea of growth and the stories formed and recorded over time.

Solution

dps decided the Contour route was the solution to their logo composition. In this option, we took a top down view. This way allowed us to imply layers of complexity within the organisation and its operations, and still tie it back into the idea of the Earth and its resources.

Visually we took our cues from farming, mining and the natural contours of the land – a dynamic shape is built from a series of organic concentric shapes. In order to make the device less agricultural in feel, we introduced a brighter colour palette. The final logo uses a clean, modern lowercase font which has been specially cut to ‘round off’ the corners to match our brand graphic device. 

Evolution

“Very happy with what you guys have provided us on this project as always – thank you!” Stuart, dps. 

Thanks to our success so far on the project, we were able to take our logo design and apply it further for dps, as the style we created had flexibility that could be used across other parts of the business. 

The different colours originally demonstrated in our first presentation of the logo composition are now beginning to roll out across companies within Terradace. They are to represent different industries or companies. Recently we have recreated the contouring style leveraging an alternative colour palette for their Agriculture Investments arm. It’s been a pleasure as always working with the dps family, and getting to grow with their style expansion.