Case Study
SEPI Engineering impacting communities.
Client Background
SEPI ENGINEERING, a full-service civil engineering firm headquartered in Raleigh with branch offices in Charlotte and Wilmington, provides engineering and planning services to the public and private sectors. SEPI came to Mellonaid with several important needs: their existing website was technologically outdated, difficult to maintain and didn’t communicate their full-service capabilities. They needed Mellonaid not only to redesign their website, but upgrade their branding to better communicate their full spectrum of services and help them branch out into other industries.
Mellonaid knew in order to fully help SEPI, we needed not merely to give them a new website, but develop a better content management system. We needed to create a brand that would showcase SEPI’s civil engineers and environmental professionals complete projects across the southeastern United States and their mission to improve the quality of life for their communities. Mellonaid got to work to get them results.
Services
- Strategy
- Messaging
- Copywriting
- Branding
- Web Design
- SEO
- Content Management System
The Challenge
When SEPI came to Mellonaid to discuss their existing website presence, we discovered:
- Their website was visually and technologically outdated.
- Current online projects didn’t reflect their full-service capabilities.
- The website was difficult to maintain and update due to a lack of CMS.
- They lacked a consistent brand experience that conveyed their values and commitment to the community.
- They needed an approach that would transition them into other niche industries and targeted services.
Updating the Brand Identity
Building on the visual red line that previously existed in their logo and in their building architecture, Mellonaid created a simplified, bolder mark as well as a defining color palette and typographic guide to act as a framework for the website and their brand.
Navigation Iconography for the People
For this civil engineering firm focused on community systems, Mellonaid created an iconic set of pictographs for SEPI based on the international standard (ISO 7001) of Public Information Symbols, which are the universal, global design standards for public accessibility and readability.
By creating a visual system that categorizes their services and industries based on devices known in their practice, users can navigate through SEPI’s offerings much like they would visually navigate public spaces.
Each time a new SEPI project is entered into the website, an auto-generated infographic displays the percentage of each service used on that project, showing a better display of their full-service capabilities.
Setting the Tone
Photography cultivates an experience—an idea or a feeling—that represents and enhances a brand. Through the power of emotion-provoking images that create positive associations for the viewer, Mellonaid chose imagery that would specifically reflect SEPI’s values of integrity and trust. Images of everyday grandeur, beautiful lighting and magnificent angles were carefully chosen to highlight SPEI’s culture and forward-thinking position.
The Human Element
Adding a human element to an image adds reliability, approachability and interaction with space, which are SEPI’s core strengths. To represent the human spirit of exploration and an open invitation to public spaces, we chose alluring and inviting images in the design.
"I am thrilled about my company's website that Mellonaid produced. The whole process from beginning to end was easy, professional and productive. The Mellonaid team listened to our needs and were extremely helpful and creative on time."
– Sepi Asefnia, President
