FORGE OF STEEL - forgemasters

BRIEF BACKGROUND

Sheffield Forgemasters is the successor to such famous Sheffield names such as Vickers, English Steel, Firth Brown and British Steel. Forgemasters is an heavy industry company that manufactures some of the best steel available on the planet from steel ingots. In 1850 Sheffield produced some 35,000 tons of steel - more than half of world production.

The origins of the company go back to the 1750s. However it was Edward Vickers, a traditional miller owning a water mill on Millsands, close to the centre of Sheffield, together with other members of his and the Naylor family who really set the foundations for the business in 1805.
Vickers exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 making a vast steel ingot - the largest ever in its time - weighing in at 24cwts. More than 40 crucible heats were required for the ingot and other works in the Millsands area provided crucibles of molten steel.
In 1856 Henry Bessemer patented the first bulk steel-making process whereby several tons of steel could be produced in less than one hour. Within a few years bulk steel production would be the city's mainstay. John Brown built the Atlas Works on farmland immediately east of the city, closely followed by Vickers giant River Don Works in 1865. The company has had quite a rollacoster ride mainly due to the cyclical demand for specialist forgings and castings.

Anyway, the logo of forge-masters is fantastic because it could easily be seen as a flower or poppy, poppy relating more towards the armaments made at the factory during the war. The logo is in 4 parts and could possibly be modified to be used for COAL UK, its not to simple and has many possibilities for its use.

The impression i collected from researching forge-masters i hoped would help give me an inspiration or two because the UK COAL brief was my choice and forge-masters is a heavy industrial business similar to coal.

Not to mention that forge-masters has an absolutely fantastic brand. The font is simplistic with an hint of history. But honestly, there's no feeling of it being a steel company.

On the other hand, the logo compliments the typeface to some degree but the typeface is what i think lets it down a little bit. 

The chart below is really useful as UK COAL requires different divisions within the company such as surface mining, deep mining and not to forget Harworth estates. But from studying and dissecting the forge-masters logo i really think this has helped me start developing because by the process of elimination, i will eventually uncover my logo hidden within.

This quote explains what i mean: -Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it


-The best design is when you can no longer take away anything more.