VerdX

Year

2026

Industry

Robotics

Services

Visual Identity

Verbal Identity

VerdX is the only all-wheel-drive robot mower that can handle slopes and mixed terrain — making cutting your grass a job that you can truly set and forget.

[01]

The Trigger

No mower was good enough

Justin didn’t set out to start a robotics company. He just wanted his own land mowed properly, and every machine he tried failed the same way: decent on flat ground, hopeless the second the terrain sloped or got uneven. Something meant to save him time kept becoming another thing to babysit.

So he set to work building the machine that didn't exist. With his co-founder Shanan on the engineering, VerdX became an all-wheel-drive autonomous mower designed around the problem nobody else had been able to solve: slopes and rough ground.

[02]

The Angle

Neither approach had the consumer in mind

The robo-mowing category is branded in two ways. Either by the legacy names in an industrial, corporate manner or in a futuristic, hyper-tech style by the autonomous start ups. Both felt equally distant through a consumer lens. This is the gap VerdX sits in. Capable enough to compete (and beat) the big boys, and down to earth and human enough that owning one doesn’t feel like running an experiment.

[03]

The Brand Mark

Effortlessly balancing three jobs at once

The frankensteined style that managed to balance these worlds was what I defined as organic retro-futurism (sounds a bit wanky, I know, but hear me out). A visual paradox that felt familiar and nostalgic, but technical and advanced at the same time. Like if you asked the 1960s to imagine the future of cutting grass. That's how I wanted the brand to feel. This way, people could approach the idea of technological advancement without feeling overwhelmed or confused, the way other brands made them feel.

This started with a brand mark that effortlessly balances three jobs at once. At face value, it reads as a stylised V sitting inside a triangular hexagon. Look closer and you'll see the perfectly manicured mowed lines left by the machine, and the slopes it handles with ease, built right into the shape.

A somewhat product-agnostic mark like this means VerdX can expand into other products down the line - weed killer, fertiliser, even irrigation - without needing to rebrand.

[04]

Type System

To look forward, sometimes you look back

This paradoxical approach guided every decision throughout the brand design. The wordmark blends harsh, straight edges with soft rounded corners, balancing the technical side of the business with the human. While the angles in the V of the brand mark perfectly match those in the wordmark to bring cohesion between the two assets.

When working on building out the type system, I sought inspiration from old print ads. A bunch of them used a kind of gloopy, yet refined serif that felt both approachable and elegant. Supporting the chosen heading typeface (Plantin MT Pro), I leaned into the ‘futurism’ side of the dichotomy with Instrument Sans and it’s quirky ‘R’ - man I love that thing. Rounding out the system, I brought in a mono for those tech-forward spec sheet moments.

[05]

Colour Palette

There’s a limit to differentiation

The job of branding isn’t always to be as different as possible; sometimes you risk your audience struggling to connect with you because you’re just so *quirky*. With quite a left-field take on the rest of the brand, tying it together with some reassuring natural hues and earth tones keeps the brand connected to its environment. But by darkening the shades of these colours, it helps the brand feel high ticket whilst clearly differentiating from other competitors, who opt for more of a neon green palette.

[06]

The Voice

Ironically human and tongue in cheek

The legacy brands sound cold and corporate whereas the robot start ups are overly technical and verbose. Acknowledging this, I wrote messaging for the brand that felt ironically human and tongue in cheek given the autonomous nature of the mower while ensuring no apocalyptic Skynet interpretations.``

Even though VerdX could win most Top Trumps games against competitors on sheer capabilities alone, I didn’t want to rely on that. I wanted to lean into that human voice further by focusing on what the machine enables for the end consumer with them able to compare on specs should they need to.

[07]

The Illustrations

Retro-futurist garden utopia

I hope collaborating with ridiculously talented people is a trend that continues with my future projects because, well, look at these! I brought in Myriam Wares for this project as she perfectly nails the otherworldly feeling in her work.

For VerdX, she created three stunning illustrations - two landscapes and one product. They're inspired by the works of M.C. Escher - isometric and impossible-feeling, architecturally precise and slightly surrealist at the same time. Textured, grain-heavy, sitting somewhere between a vintage technical drawing and something you'd see today. They further support this retro-futurist vibe across the brand in the most beautiful way, and with various crops and zooms, they give VerdX so much optionality when creating brand assets.