How&How avoids an overly “friendly or soft” look for bio-concrete startup, Biozeroc

A UK material sciences startup has received a dynamic visual identity from How&How – an agency well known for its work in the sustainability sector, rebranding clients like Freetree and, more recently, Amphico. The agency was faced with an interesting conundrum going into this project. Biozeroc is trying to present a low-carbon alternative to concrete – the second most consumed material on Earth after water – but it was having a hard time breaking into a market that was quite literally saturated with cement.

How&How also didn’t want to be overly “friendly or soft” when rebranding the company, “or else risk being lumped in with all the other ‘green’ companies trying to compete with legacy solutions in the construction industry,” the agency says. The solution was to avoid linking the brand too closely with concrete or environmentalism, and instead focus on how it is reinventing hard materials as we know it.

“Hardness” permeates the entirety of the new brand. The typeface, The Future by Klim Type Foundry, is a revival of Futura, a “classically architectural typeface”, says Luke Scott, How&How’s design director. “Concrete has an inseparable link to brutalism. When choosing a typeface for the Biozeroc brand it felt natural to use something that shared a similar architectural lineage and felt at home paired with brutal concrete forms.” The logo, meanwhile, builds a simple B from two breeze blocks stacked together.

The agency also used the redesign as an opportunity to overcome communication challenges for Biozeroc. For example, the startup is currently working on the molecular science of concrete, meaning its actual product is under construction. How&How’s brand responds with a use of 3D, to create a tangible sense of what these products could look like. Elsewhere, the agency has adopted a flexible colour palette which Scott describes as “a mash up of Le Corbusier’s Polychromy and a science lab”, enabling Biozeroc to speak to its duel audience of both architects and developers, and material scientists.