When Georgiou Group, one of Australia's longest running construction contractors, was acquired by STRABAG, one of Europe's largest construction companies, the business needed to move quickly.
Two proud brands were coming together, and every piece of Georgiou's day to day communication, from business cards to site signage, needed to reflect the new joint identity without losing the values Georgiou has built its name on since 1977.
Emma O'Rourke, Georgiou's National Communications Manager, reached out to Harbrow Creations to lead a brand refresh built specifically for a construction company. This wasn't a logo redesign. It was something bigger: a complete design system that would let Georgiou's team create every important document under the new branding, consistently and without needing a designer involved each time.
The Challenge
A brand refresh for a construction company looks different to most industries. Georgiou needed a practical, ready to use set of templates that covered the full spread of what a national construction business runs on day to day:
Business cards, letterhead and email signatures for staff across the business
A style guide to keep the new joint branding consistent
LinkedIn headers for the company and individual profiles
Pull-up banners for offices
Event gazebos for on-site and community presence
A Seek banner for job board advertising
Site hoarding signs across multiple formats and sizes
A Microsoft Teams background for everyday internal use
Every deliverable had to work under a tight deadline. Georgiou needed the system finalised and handed over within two months of the very first meeting.
Our Approach
Harbrow started by mapping out every touchpoint Georgiou's team would need under the new joint branding, from the small (email signatures) to the highly visible (site hoarding). A brand refresh for a construction company has to work as hard on a site fence as it does on a business card, so rather than treating each item as a one-off design, we built a system: consistent layouts, colours and typography that could flex across formats without needing a rebrief each time.
The style guide came first, since it set the rules everything else had to follow. From there, we worked through the collateral in parallel, keeping business cards, letterhead and email signatures consistent with each other while making sure the larger formats, like the pull-up banners and site hoarding, held up at scale.
The values logo needed particular care. Georgiou was clear that STRABAG's acquisition wasn't about losing what the business stood for, so the values work was treated as its own strand within the system rather than an afterthought bolted onto the main brand assets.
With a two month deadline covering everything from initial meeting to final file handover, we kept communication tight with Emma and her team throughout, working through drafts quickly so Georgiou's team could start rolling out the new branding as soon as each asset was signed off.
At handover, Georgiou received every working file, not just finished exports. We believe a brand belongs to the business that owns it, so Georgiou's team can now open, adjust and print any asset in the system themselves, without going back and forth with an agency every time something needs updating.
The Results
Within two months, Georgiou had a complete, ready to use design system covering:
Business cards, letterhead and email signatures ready for staff-wide rollout
A style guide the team can reference for any future collateral
LinkedIn headers for the company page and personal profiles
Pull-up banners for office use
Event gazebos for site and community events
A Seek banner ready for job board advertising
Site hoarding signs across the formats Georgiou's sites need
A Microsoft Teams background for daily internal use
Georgiou now has everything it needs to present a consistent, professional identity across the business, and full control to manage and update it themselves, without relying on a designer for every new document.
Planning a brand refresh for your construction company?
At Harbrow Creations, we help construction and infrastructure businesses turn a brand change, whether that's an acquisition, a merger or simply a refresh, into a practical system their whole team can actually use. If you're facing a tight deadline and a long list of collateral to update, we'd love to hear about your project and see how we can help.
