2014 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The key challenges were: • Ensure the brand carries the Mubadala name sensitively and without having a design connection to the existing Mubadala brand. • The brand must demonstrate that they are an upstream oil and gas company. This means that they operate across the three areas within the field - exploration, development and production. • The brand must stand up against International competitors brands such as BP etc • The brand must demonstrate the idea of 'partnership'.

The Brief

Mubadala Petroleum is a young and ambitious international oil and gas company. They commissioned us to build their new brand, from the strategy through to creating the identity, the expression and the deployment. The main brief was to build a brand that would demonstrate both their upstream capabilities and theme of partnership. It was also important that the brand be bold, modern and stand out in a the crowded oil and gas sector.

How the final design was conceived

By combining the idea of a drilling rig, and the letter 'M', we crafted a bold, engineered and angular icon, which suggests both oil and gas extraction and the idea of partnership. The angular icon comes together to form three initial triangles which form the basis of a drilling platform. Each representing exploration, development and production. The final bottom triangles are reaching beneath the surface to the oil. The icon was combined with a bold colour palette and modern typography in both English and Arabic.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Mubadala Petroleum operate in over half of the globe and the brand has been extremely well received across many different languages and cultures. What has also been made clear is that it stands up extremely well against well know oil and gas producers such as BP and Shell, especially given it's bold design style and unusual use of colour.