Brand Identity — 2024
Tuwaiq Armour
Two companies, one mountain, one mark. That was the entire brief.
Opening
Tuwaiq Armour is a joint venture between MKU and Sondos, a Saudi defence company. The brand needed to reflect both organisations, their shared values, and the Tuwaiq mountain — the origin of the name and the symbol the whole venture was built around.
That's a lot to hold in a mark.
The Real Design Problem
Joint venture identities usually fail in one of two ways. Either they become a merger graphic — two logos awkwardly combined, belonging to neither parent. Or they over-index on one partner's visual language and the other becomes a footnote.
The answer was a third option: find the thing that belongs to neither parent. The thing they both chose — the mountain. That's what the mark is built from.
What I Was Pulling From
The Tuwaiq mountain itself — the escarpment, the geological formations, the way that particular landscape sits in the Saudi visual imagination. The visual heritage of both parent organisations.
The moodboard was about finding the overlap. Not the compromise between two brands — the thing that existed before either of them, that both reached toward.
The Mark
Built from the mountain. Extended into a system that could function at the scale of a ballistic helmet and the scale of an exhibition booth simultaneously.
The logotype was developed in English and Arabic in parallel — not translated, designed. Both versions carry the same weight and visual authority.
What I Built
Logo and logotype in English and Arabic.
Corporate identity — presentations, documents, brand applications.
Product branding — armour plates, ballistic jackets, helmets, labels.
Booth infosystem design — the brand at exhibition scale.
Poster system — the brand in campaign contexts.
A versatile mark extension system — the logo element adapted for use across surfaces, materials, and scales.
What I Actually Think About It
The best joint venture identity work makes you forget there was ever a negotiation. The mark should look inevitable — like it couldn't have been anything else. That's only possible if you find something both sides genuinely share, rather than averaging what they want. The mountain was that thing here.