Tunnelcraft
A bold new identity, original content and high-performing digital platform for one of the UK’s leading specialist tunnelling labour suppliers.
- Sector
- Infrastructure and tunnelling
- Platform
- WordPress
- Impact
- A stronger brand, 34 verified enquiries and growing organic search visibility
- Services
- Brand strategy and evolution, visual identity, monogram design, website design and development, mobile-first UX, SEO, content strategy, art direction, interviews, photography, video production, drone filming and post-production
- Website
- tunnelcraft.co.uk
The challenge
For 40 years, TunnelCraft has supplied experienced, trained and safety-focused operatives to some of the UK’s most significant tunnelling and infrastructure projects, including HS2.
Its reputation had outgrown the way the business presented itself. The identity and website gave little sense of the scale of the work, the expertise behind it, or the seriousness with which TunnelCraft treats safety and the development of its workforce.
The digital experience also had to make a technically complex specialist business understandable to clients, employees, apprentices and project partners alike.
Tunnelling and infrastructure
Forty years, underground.
The monogram draws on the geometry of subterranean channels and circular shaft tunnels, a symbol taken from the environment TunnelCraft actually works in rather than the usual vocabulary of hard hats and cranes. It says what the business does without having to spell it out.
From there the identity became a flexible design system, giving TunnelCraft a consistent presence across its website, communications, workwear, vehicles and wider marketing.
A website that leads with expertise
The business is complex. Understanding it should not be. TunnelCraft’s specialist disciplines, from TBM tunnelling and microtunnelling to traditional hand mining, shaft sinking and sprayed concrete lining, each have a clear place in the structure, so a client can see quickly what the company does and where its experience runs deepest.
Safety credentials and workforce development sit alongside them rather than beneath them. Apprenticeships, vocational qualifications and specialist tunnelling training are given real prominence, because the people TunnelCraft trains are what it actually supplies.
Capturing the people and projects behind the brand
Tunnelling happens where cameras rarely go. Showing it meant going there.
Generic construction imagery could never tell this story. Filming took place at HS2 sites in London and Birmingham, interviewing and photographing the people behind TunnelCraft and capturing the scale of the work first-hand.
What came back is a library that belongs to TunnelCraft alone: real people, real working environments and major UK infrastructure, showing the expertise and culture of the business as it actually is.
- TBM Tunnelling
- Microtunnelling
- Sprayed Concrete Lining
- Shaft Sinking
The results
The new identity gives TunnelCraft a presence that matches its standing in UK tunnelling.
The commercial response followed quickly. Within the first twelve weeks the site produced 34 verified enquiries, close to three a week, from an audience built entirely from a standing start.
The first twelve weeks
An international audience from day one
Visitors arrived from 128 countries. TunnelCraft is a specialist UK supplier, so that is reach rather than a new market, but it says something useful: specialist content travels well beyond the audience it was written for.
Search became an important route in, bringing visitors who stay to understand what TunnelCraft does rather than passing through. That has held beyond the launch period, with organic sessions still climbing.
“Jonathan and James at Bluestone98 made the process of upgrading our website and rebranding our logos seamless. They were always on hand to discuss new ideas with our team, and we would highly recommend them as a go-to company for website design.”
Building a stronger digital presence
Each specialist service now has a clear and authoritative place in the wider experience. Detailed content helps clients understand capability across TBM tunnelling, microtunnelling, sprayed concrete lining, shaft sinking and traditional hand mining.
The depth is being used. People arrive and read rather than glance, which is the behaviour of someone weighing up a supplier.
They also travel well beyond the homepage. Services, case studies, the team, company heritage, safety and training, and careers and apprenticeships have each built audiences of their own.
That is what depth earns: a specialist business organised so the right people can find it and understand it.
Clarity, hard won
The strongest improvement is clarity.
A complex specialist business is now presented through a straightforward digital experience that serves several different audiences without overwhelming them.
Clients can quickly understand TunnelCraft’s capabilities and experience. Prospective employees can explore careers, qualifications and apprenticeships. Project partners can see the company’s commitment to competence, safety and reliable delivery.
The original photography, interviews, video and drone footage provide further credibility. They allow TunnelCraft to show the people, skills and environments behind its work, while creating a valuable bank of content for future campaigns and communications.
More than a new logo and website
Behind the visual identity sits a flexible design and content system that the TunnelCraft team can continue to develop. New projects, training programmes and company achievements can be added without compromising the consistency of the brand.
The result is more than a new logo and website. It is a confident and credible digital platform that reflects TunnelCraft’s heritage, captures the scale of its work and supports the next stage of the business.
