Alpha natural resources to Contura Energy: A Full corporate Rename and rebrand

WHO?

The coal industry has been challenged in recent years due to tightening environmental regulations and competition from cheaper natural gas, causing major coal producers, such as Alpha Natural Resources to file for bankruptcy. Alpha sold many of its assets and planned to emerge from bankruptcy as a reorganized smaller, sustainable company that focused on fulfilling its environmental reclamation activities. The new, post-bankruptcy Alpha needed a new company name with no allusion to Alpha, which felt forward-looking but rooted in tradition since mining was still to be at the heart of the business. The new company needed to present itself as agile and confident in its ability to overcome adversity and challenges to achieve long-term success.

WHAT?

A small team of us explored several potential names for a new energy company, keeping in mind that the company’s rebranded name should feel assertive, consistent with (but not captive to) Alpha’s character, and future-focused. After providing numerous names and accompanying logo directions, the client chose Contura Energy with the adjacent tagline, 'shaping a powerful tomorrow.'

Contour strip mining is a method of surface mining, in which bulldozers, power shovels, or stripping wheels are used to remove large chunks of earth in terraced strips in order to extract coal from a seam or series of seams along the contour of a hill or mountain. The adaptation of the word contour to contura abstracts the concept a bit and creates a word which feels more active by using the latin suffix –tura which is used to turn a a supine form of a verb into the verb’s action or the result of an action. Ex: pingo ("I paint") to pictura ("painting, picture”) or scribo (I write) to scriptura (act of writing).

I led our creative team on the branding exercise to produce multiple logo options, with one of my options being chosen. I then created the brand guidelines, sub-branding system for their multiple locations, stationery set and I art directed the creation of the website. 

Quick start brand guidelines

Stationery

One year anniversary sticker for safety helmets

Naming/Logo exploration