Story in brief:
This is a second name change for a one-time furniture manufacturer, now "the world's leading component supplier to the wind turbine industry." As new contenders crowd into its space, CEO Roland Sunden came to see that a rebranding could consolidate, broaden and strengthen LM Glasfiber's leadership posture, signaling "a new powerful player." The key tools:
- Retain LM but change descriptor from Glasfiber to Wind Power;
- Reconfigure/rename three defining units;
- Design a new wordmark, and a unifying visual system.

Originally Lunderskov Moebelfabrik (Lunderskov Furniture Factory), in the 1950s the woodworking company changed its name to reflect leadership in a new material; remember those molded Danish modern chairs? Then in the 1970s it began to fabricate wind turbine blades. The arrival in 2001 of backing from one of Europe’s most successful private equity firms, Doughty Hanson, supercharged its growth. Anticipating its rebranding, in 2009 the company spun out a new "Services and Logistics" business from its "Blades" business. Also in 2009, Doughty Hanson acquired Svendborg Brakes (whose turbine division is another leader in the turbine field) and added it to LM, constituting a third defining unit. (Svenborg Brakes however, on its own site, as of 2 November 2010 is still in transition, not yet co-branded or even endorsed by its new parent).

Having decided to keep "LM" and add "Wind Power," Sunden's team retained the Danish corporate branding firm Make to design the repositioned company. A turbine-based symbol might have been expected; instead, Make(r) proposed a wordmark (indeed an entire alphabet) composed of blade-like letterforms. The mark features LM (now-meaningless) only because it has to; the visually softer "Wind Power" now constitutes the preemptive heart of the identity.

Through color, typography and other blade-echoing graphic forms, the new visual system extends the presence of the brand. The signature system is (one can assume) heading toward a monolithic "Wind Power: Blades, Brakes, Service and Logistics," pending further acquisitions.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Roland Sunden
C.M.O. - Christopher Springham, VP Global Communications
Identity strategy & design - Make, in Copenhagen

note blade devices, custom alphabet, cool palette and unit color coding

First Impressions:
Strategy: Rebrand? Absolutely. Stake out "wind power"? Brilliant. Retain "LM"? Weak; a lapse in audacity? In B to B rebrandings you can more easily aim for a more perfect name and launch it with confidence, certain that your customers will still know who you are.
Design: Comprehensive, and functionally effective.

Other Comments:
To my typographic eye, it would seem that while the wordmark uses custom drawn forms, the supporting face appears to Amplitude by Christian Schwartz.http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/Amplitude/
Gary Schmidt

Corporate Brand Matrix ratings:
0% structural, 100% strategic, 0% functional (est.)

Replacing ..

CEO Roland Sunden

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