Two projects for Hy-Line International, and what happened to the work after we handed it over.
Most of the value in a piece of creative work shows up after we deliver it, not during. That’s worth knowing before you commission anything. Two projects we did for Hy-Line International, one of the world’s leading breeders of egg-laying hens, are a clear example of what we mean.
Two separate projects
We worked with Hy-Line on two distinct pieces of work. The first was a big corporate presentation, built with custom animation to help them tell a complex story, decades of genetic research, global distribution, production data, in a way that would land clearly with audiences anywhere in the world. The second, entirely separate, was a brand identity for Hy-Line’s 90th anniversary: a standalone mark built around a hen, an egg and the number 90, designed from the start to be used well beyond a single document.
Two different briefs, two different jobs, but the same question behind both: how do we build something that keeps doing its job long after the first delivery?
What we built
For the presentation, the challenge was less about finding content and more about shaping it. A company with this much history and this much data could easily fill a hundred slides with things nobody remembers. We used animation and a clear structure to bring the story to life, so the scale of the business and the science behind it landed properly, rather than washing over people.
Inside the deck: data, timelines and global reach, built to tell one clear story.
For the anniversary identity, we built a mark that could stretch to fit anything. It had to feel right for a 90-year milestone, but also work shrunk onto a pen, blown up across an exhibition wall, or embroidered onto a cap. That sort of flexibility has to be there from the first sketch. You can’t add it on later.
The mark itself: a hen, an egg and the number 90, built to flex across every application that followed.
Where it travelled
This is the part I find most satisfying. Hy-Line have their own in-house design team, and because the identity was built as a proper system, with clean, flexible files to hand over, they were able to extend it themselves. The 90 years identity now turns up on exhibition stand graphics for industry events, tote bags, caps, pens, lanyards, enamel pins and branded clothing, and bits of the presentation have found their way into other printed materials too, all without a fresh design job each time.
None of that needed us. That’s what a properly built identity should do: you hand it over as a system, not just a file, and the people who own it can keep using it, consistently, wherever they need it.
What this means for you
If you’re commissioning a presentation, a brand identity, or anything else, it’s worth asking one question before you start: what will you want to do with this in six months, or a year? A logo that only works on a slide is a much smaller asset than one your own team can put on a stand, a tote bag or a t-shirt without it looking bolted on.
That’s the real return. You pay for it once, and if it’s built right, it keeps being useful, often in the hands of your own people, long after we’re out of the picture.
Louise Long, Global Marketing Manager at Hy-Line, recently summed up working with us like this:
”Omnia take the time to understand your objectives, bring fresh ideas to the table, and consistently deliver work of an exceptional standard.
This was kind of her, but the part worth passing on is simpler: build it as a proper system, and the people who own it can keep putting it to work long after you’re done.
Thinking about creative work that needs to do more than one job?
We’d be glad to talk it through.
