Brand & Digital Infrastructure for a Nationally Recognized Automation Firm

Brand Strategy · Site Architecture · Copywriting · Image Sourcing · In-house project · Developed in collaboration with a web development partner

Background

APCO Inc. has spent over 25 years building process control and automation systems for industries where failure isn't an option — water treatment, oil and gas, mining, power, and manufacturing. Their clients include refineries, water reclamation facilities, and chemical plants across the Intermountain West and beyond.

A Mission-Focused Company

APCO operates with an unusual sense of purpose for an engineering firm. Their stated goal is to use automation to make the world a better, safer place — safe drinking water, secure refineries, sustainable agriculture. That conviction runs through everything they do.

The Problem

A website and branding that failed to communicate their expertise to potential clients.

Challenge

Six Industries. One Website.

APCO serves mining operations, water facilities, oil and gas refineries, manufacturers, food and agriculture systems, and power plants. Each sector carries its own vocabulary, its own concerns, and its own standards for credibility. A site that tried to speak to all of them equally risked speaking to none of them effectively.

The Trust Problem In industrial automation, trust is the product. Clients are handing over control of critical infrastructure — systems that affect public safety, environmental compliance, and operational continuity. Generic marketing copy doesn't clear that bar. The site needed to earn credibility before a prospect ever picked up the phone.

The Visibility Gap APCO had won System Integrator of the Year, and their client testimonials read like endorsements from people who had staked their operations on them. None of that was visible. The website was leaving their reputation on the table.

Approach

Starting From Zero

The original site had no homepage. Visitors landed directly into a list of industries with no orientation and no explanation of what APCO actually did. The industries were listed as though APCO was them — a mining company, a water district, an oil and gas operation — when in reality APCO served all of them. The actual service, process control and automation, was buried if present at all. There was no user journey, no contact form, and no clear next step. Everything was scrapped, and the new architecture was built from scratch.

Learning the Industries

Writing credibly for six technically demanding sectors required more than surface research. Independent research was conducted on each industry, supplemented by direct consultation with APCO's own engineering experts. For industries like water and wastewater, that meant interviewing heads of operations — the people who knew exactly what a water district manager needed to hear before picking up the phone. Because APCO is system-agnostic and deploys across whatever platform their clients run on, the work also required getting educated on each of those platforms and writing to them accurately.

Building the Architecture

The new site structure gave every industry its own dedicated landing page, written specifically for that audience. Solutions were mapped separately from industries, because what APCO does and who they do it for are two different conversations. A clear hierarchy emerged: here is who we serve, here is how we serve them, here is why you can trust us, and here is how to reach us. For the first time, the site had a coherent user journey.

Solution

A Brand, Finally.

APCO had no coherent brand. Multiple logo versions were in circulation simultaneously across the website, printed materials, and client-facing portals. Their sole brand color, a blue, existed in several inconsistent shades, and legacy branding was still live and client-facing. None of it was modern, and none of it was intentional.

A full brand guide was created to change that. Colors were identified, codified, and locked: a deep charcoal (#2B2F31), a strong blue (#105796), a bold accent yellow (#FFCF00), a lighter blue (#2096FF reserved for use on dark backgrounds), and clean neutrals throughout. Usage rules were written with accessibility standards embedded as a foundation, not an afterthought. A new logo was developed in partnership with a graphic designer through an iterative process with APCO's leadership, resulting in a mark that felt modern and recognizable without abandoning what made the brand familiar.

Copy That Earned Trust

Every word on the site was written from scratch. The tone was adapted to an engineering audience: precise, substantive, and with evidence of APCO’s experiences serving their industry. The blog was built to go further, positioning APCO as a genuine thought leader with content covering SCADA alarm analysis, cybersecurity for industrial systems, and upgrade planning considerations — the kind of content their audience would actually read and return for.

Images That Did the Work

Engineering companies are notoriously image-poor, and APCO was no exception. The new site was built to be image-rich, cohesive with the brand palette, industrial in feel, and human wherever the content called for it. Pages about collaboration and outreach featured people. Pages about infrastructure featured the work. Many of the images were captured on-site with a personal camera, and every stock image was sourced and selected to align with the brand's color tones and visual register. For an engineering firm, building that image library was a significant undertaking — and the difference it made was visible.

Impact

Stage Ready

The new site launched just ahead of APCO receiving national recognition as System Integrator of the Year, an award that drove a significant spike in traffic to the site. The timing was deliberate. The goal was to have a presence worthy of standing on a national stage, and when that moment arrived, the site was ready for it.

Positioned as a Thought Leader

The blog and industry landing pages gave APCO a platform to demonstrate expertise rather than simply claim it. The architecture ensured that any visitor, regardless of industry, could find relevant content quickly and leave with confidence in what APCO does and who they do it for.

The Response

Leadership called it a great website. For a company that had operated for years without a coherent brand or a functional digital presence, that response reflected something real — a website that finally matched the company behind it.

Conclusion

APCO didn't need a prettier website. They needed one that worked — that communicated clearly, built trust quickly, and held up under national scrutiny. The work required learning six industries well enough to write for each of them, building a brand from the ground up, capturing images on-site, and creating an architecture that gave every visitor a reason to stay and a clear path forward. It was one of the most technically demanding and creatively expansive projects in the studio's history, and one of the most satisfying to deliver.

Developed in collaboration with a web development partner. Visit the site → apco-inc.com