Industry
Piloted eVTOL Vehicles
Role
Designer
Date
2020
Location
Johannesburg, South Africa
Client
Polar
Piloted E-VTOL Vehicles
Polar was developed as a new eVTOL brand focused on compact piloted aircraft, including applications designed to reduce emergency-response times.
The Brief
Esprit and Welkin combined their expertise under a new identity: Polar. The objective was to establish a distinctive and credible brand within the emerging UAV and aerial-technology sector.
The identity needed to perform across digital platforms, marketing collateral and the aircraft themselves. This created an unusual design constraint: the mark had to remain recognisable at distance, in motion and within the limited branding area available on a drone fuselage.
Approach
I designed an identity system for both large-scale and single-colour applications.
The visual direction focused on precision, innovation and advanced technology, using a contemporary identity system.
The selected mark uses three geometric forms to create a compact upward-pointing symbol that conveys lift, forward momentum and precision.
A blue palette reinforces qualities of trust, reliability and technical confidence, while the simplified geometry ensures the identity remains legible across aircraft, digital and single-colour applications.
Mock-ups / Sales Material
LOGO application
The identity was tested across product mock-ups to evaluate visibility, scale and integration with the aircraft itself.
These applications confirmed that the simplified mark remained recognisable across different viewing angles and product configurations.
REFLECTION
Polar challenged me to create a distinctive identity for an emerging aerial technology company formed through the merger of Esprit and Welkin. The key was to balance innovation with credibility, positioning the brand beyond traditional aviation while communicating precision, reliability and forward-thinking engineering.
I developed the brand strategy, logo and visual identity with versatility at the core. The identity needed to perform across digital platforms, corporate collateral and aircraft fuselages, remaining recognisable at a distance, in motion and in monochrome.
The project reinforced the importance of designing identities around real-world constraints, not just aesthetics. Every element needed to function across different scales, materials and environments while maintaining a consistent brand presence.
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