Star of the show: CUSP’s futuristic brand for REFIRE captures the company’s tech-forward business

REFIRE, a leading deployer of hydrogen fuel cell zero-emissions technologies, collaborated with global creative collective CUSP to reimagine their brand. The project encompassed the development of an identity, a new website, conceptual videos, and 3D brand assets, with the aim of creating a highly interactive experience and showcasing the brand's forward-thinking approach.

From the ground up, the project took shape with a focus on expanding into the European market for the first time. Therefore, to enhance name recognition in the hydrogen engine marketplace, the team decided on a wordmark-first approach. Custom-made with attention to detail, the aesthetic drew inspiration from “classic industrial brands but incorporating flourishes of futurism to allow it to live in both worlds seamlessly,” Founder & Creative Director Brandon Levesque reveals. The isolated ‘R’ is utilised in certain brand applications as a brand monogram that still maintains a strong connection to the wordmark as a whole.

As complimentary typefaces to these two brand elements, Suisse and Suisse Mono were used for their classic style and subtle futurism, respectively. “One of the brand ethos of REFIRE is that it is light and unobtrusive,” Levesque adds. “So we wanted to use a typeface that gave the design a strong sense of typography but at the same time, not have a font that had too many ligatures that would distract from the simplicity of the design.”

The website, developed by Salt & Pepper, offers interactive features, allowing users to engage with REFIRE’s products in more depth than their previous site. “In the technology section, we have an interactive scroll sequence to allow the user to see the inner workings of the engine itself, showcasing the product in more detail than ever before,” Levesque notes. “In the full product list you can rotate all the products 360 degrees to view them in detail in a moment of interactive discovery.”

CUSP

REFIRE