Tesla brand strategy
Realigning the company to its mission
Imagine electricity being harvested from people’s kinetic energy expended on the floors as they walk to the metro. The technology is already available. Imagine collecting friction energy from all the moving trains in NYC. Imagine this power feeding right back to run the trains, elevators, and lights in a metro system. Tesla has already began to provide back-up electrical power for a city. Let’s take it all the way.
Brand Audit and Strategy >
Identifying unique opportunity for Tesla
Visual Design Decisions >
Thought process of the visual brand elements
Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Although Tesla describes itself as an American automaker, energy generation and storage company, it is focused on selling cars to reach its mission.
Problem:
Tesla's scope of work toward its own mission is too small.
Tesla is more than a car company. Its real asset is the ecosystem of energy production (think solar cells), storage (think battery packs), and usage (think electric cars, home, and electronics). Tesla is an energy company.
Solution:
Shift Tesla from a car maker to a provider of clean energy for the public.
The campaign for Tesla’s new work are in public spaces where Tesla’s technology is at work.
You don't have to buy a Tesla product to be a part of their global mission for sustainability.
The new logo symbol comes from the way electricians denote a single battery cell. It embodies electricity and represents energy storage technology.
I chose this symbol because the single battery cell is the foundation for everything Tesla produces.
As long as the Sun shines, the wind blows, the rivers flow, and living things move, there is infinite energy.
It was Nikola Tesla’s dream to create free electricity for everyone in the world.
I drew inspiration from NASA’s satellite images of Earth’s vast and varied lands and oceans to incite feelings of how sources of energy can be limitless. Images that show what cannot be seen at eye level is a reminder that it’s not about any one individual. The sustainability mission is much bigger than anyone of us.
Typography is clean and airy because the energy Tesla produces is as free and as clean as the air we breathe.
These graphic libraries are extensions of the electrical language for the new Tesla Inc.
Below is how an example of what it may look like when the new brand identity is applied onto existing products.
This popup exhibition shows how walking or riding a bicycle equipped with Tesla’s technology can generate, store, and use the energy to power lights and the digital screen.