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After decades of serving as the rail industry’s most trusted research partner, the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) undertook a significant reinvention to better position itself for growth. With dynamic new leadership and a move to new state-of-the-art research and testing facilities, the company needed a new brand that could unmistakably signal its reinvention.
The company’s long history supporting the rail industry meant that there were scores of different ways to express the value it delivered – from specialized software to on-track testing to disaster response training – as well as a diverse set of perspectives on the company’s role in the field. Mighty Good applied its rigorous positioning strategy methodology to invite differing points of view on the company’s value and higher purpose, all while driving the team towards consensus. Ultimately, we landed on a simple idea for the new brand; one both authentic to the company and a recognized value to its audiences: momentum. Every aspect of the company’s world-class work contributes to forward momentum – from testing new technology to training the next generation of first responders – a key desire in an industry that often must balance a steady focus on safety with an eagerness to innovate.
The company’s former name, TTCI, was tied to its previous facility – the Transportation Technology Center. The new name needed to signal the new and more unique brand idea: the momentum its team provides. Mighty Good developed a range of new name options – all connected to the strategy – resulting in a final choice of MxV Rail. “M x V” is the mathematical formula for momentum, representing the core idea of the brand, and offering a nod to the scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians behind the work. In a field awash in acronyms, the new name offers a creative, memorable approach for a brand looking to make a new mark.
To capture the voice of a company grounded in expert problem solving, collaboration, and passion for rail, Mighty Good crafted a Brand Story that evokes energy and action, and puts the MxV Rail team front and center. The story establishes a new way of describing why MxV Rail exists and why that matters: unlocking momentum for the world.
Mighty Good created a bold, new visual identity to evoke both a modern, forward focus and powerful reliability. The visual system employs an abstract interpretation of tracks through a motif of rounded, colorful bars. The bars combine structure with energy and motion, as colors move from warm to cold and bars stack up and down. As part of this visual system, the logo mark is a set of abstracted letterforms that mimic the shapes and proportions of the rounded bars. Photography communicates a focus on modern engineering and MxV Rail’s friendly, accessible team of experts.
To support MxV Rail’s ambitious new chapter, Mighty Good provided a first-of-its-kind Brand Guide as well as a wide range of supporting brand designs for equipment, clothing, events, proposals, facility maps, presentation materials, and much more.
“As a team of engineers with a long-standing and well-known brand, we walked into the rebrand discussion with extreme skepticism and a firm commitment to our roots. Walking out of the experience, I don’t know why we were concerned. The MG team was committed to understanding our story and reflecting that in our new brand. My expectations in both process and output were far exceeded and we are grateful for our rebrand experience.”
– Kari Gonzales, CEO, MxV Rail