This is the third and final post about Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler. This section of the book showcased best practices of designing brand identities. In this section Wheeler discussed the process and strategy different companies used created their brand. It also gave information about how the identity was created and the person or team that worked on it along with the results ans success of the finished identity.

For this post, I am going to do a discussion, similar to those in the book, about the identity for Case International.

CASE INTERNATIONAL
“The Case IH brand represents a tradition of leadership. It is the culmination of great agricultural equipment companies and brands,”
- Excerpt from Case International History Overview

Case was founded in 1863 when Jerome Increase Case established “J.I. Case and Company”. Case was on the leading edge of agriculture equipment manufacturing, producing the first steam engine tractor as well as the first gasoline powered engine.

The original Case logo with Old Abe the eagle. link

Process and Strategy
In 1985, Case acquired International Harvester becoming Case IH. The acquisition gave Case IH a greater market share, a broadened product line and an expanded dealer organization. The new company needed a logo that would show this greater product line and incorporate the International Harvester identity.

These are the logos that were in place before Case acquired International Harvester.

Creative Solution
The logo was redesigned to incorporate International Harvester’s IH logo. The red and black colors were retained from International Harvester. The tractors became all red, black, and white as well which goes back to the original colors of the Case tractors as well as those of International Harvester. It has bold powerful typography that mimics the power of the tractors. Case kept the bold uppercase sans serif typography. The type became italic to reinforce the forward movement of the tractors as well as Case’s forward thinking. The result is the logo shown below that has carried through for almost 30 years.

Results
Today Case IH has a broad line of High-tech agricultural equipment and is a leader in the agricultural industry. The logo is used on everything from manuals to hats to tractors.