Uponor - design guidelines clarify company offering

In collaboration with Uponor, we created design guidelines to ensure a coherent, consistent and controlled company cross-cutting industrial design. The guidelines guide design work according to principles that derive from the company’s design philosophy and are translated into concrete product archetypes. The real added value of the guidelines is achieved through a consistent design language and systematic repetition that clarifies the brand image and communication.

Uponor is a leading Finnish designer and manufacturer of building services and infrastructure products. Uponor manufactures a wide range of products that ensure a range of Nordic well-being conditions, such as clean drinking water and the right indoor air temperature. Uponor is a company with a product portfolio of thousands of products in various categories. As a result of our partner project we produced guidelines that unify and communicate the company’s values in different product segments.

What is a design guide?

The design guidelines describe the basic principles of industrial design and serve as a key tool in the implementation and evaluation of design. It defines the role of industrial design at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. The guidelines are intended for company employees who are responsible for managing, designing, and manufacturing products.

Uponor’s S-Press Plus is a set of connectors that utilizes design guidelines. The design of the product was driven by, for example, first-class installation experience.

The design of Uponor’s design guidelines started with the goal of combining the company’s vision and high-quality user-oriented products into a complete brand experience. The starting point for industrial design was the creation of drivers that create a physical interface between the brand and the company’s message. The guidelines defined various visual tags that communicate the company’s excellence in the product world. In addition to this, the guide also has many practical benefits. For example, product labels were structured and clarified to facilitate installation. The new color palette and material textures were also determined taking into account the different manufacturing methods.

Coherent experience

Excellent user experience

First-class quality

Uponor’s guiding principles, that guide the company’s industrial design, create a harmonious whole and last time, formed into the company’s design principles. The principles aim to simplify product design and emphasize a high-quality user experience related to installation. The design guidelines focus on industrial design but are designed as a parallel tool to the brand guidelines. The impact of industrial design on the brand image is vast, as it embodies the physical dimension of the brand and is a concrete example of a company’s expertise. The design guidelines can be used to determine what the product looks like but also what the product feels like and what kind of user experience is created from using the product. It is important that the company takes advantage of all the points of contact that affect the brand experience and strives to accurately influence the image that is formed of the company as a whole. In this way, it is possible to influence the customer’s purchase decision, the end user’s user experience as well as customer loyalty and product recommendation.