QUALITAS

The Furniture and Carpet Action group was a voluntary industry body set up to regulate its members in much the same way as ABTA does for the travel industry.

The task of effectively communicating the organisation through the new name of Qualitas was arrived at by a rigorous name generation process. 'Name generation is no easy task and will be the subject of a separate resource feature.

Having registered the name a design exploration was started to find an appropriate identity. Many image ideas were explored including trees and benchmarks for their obvious association with the subject.
The castle icon came about from a stray remark by the client that 'an Englishman's home is his castle'. This was also a fitting icon for an authority charged with protecting standards.

The 'Q' mark became a useful device for signing the brand in a short form without the complete logo. The dovetail became a decorative graphic feature used in a secondary way on forms and literature.

In combination with the logo development a graphic design programme was commissioned to create a new range of furniture labelling to help members promote key product characteristics at retail point of sale.

This counteracted many of the problems arising from furniture being returned because customers had not fully appreciated the nature of the wood or fabric used in the construction.