SPORTEX – the UK’s only company offering recycling for old pitches and tracks.
Artificial sports surfacing experts Ecosse Sports revealed their dynamic new name and branding earlier this week at the launch of their new website.
The company is the first and only UK company to offer a unique recycling service for old artificial sports surfaces, and has rebranded as SPORTEX, a name derived from ‘sports’ and ‘texture’ and ‘technical’.
The rename and rebrand were commissioned to modernise the look and feel of the company, which installs, maintains and recycles artificial sports surfacing.
The rebrand was commissioned in response to the company’s ambitions for growth across the whole UK market, beyond the Scottish location of their headquarters, with particular focus on its unique recycling process.
Instead of sending old sports pitch surfacing to landfill at the end of its lifetime, SPORTEX has developed a reclamation processing plant that can recycle the very expensive loose infill materials from an old surface – usually white silica sand and rubber granules – which are separated, cleaned, graded, sanitised and tested for re-use in new surfaces.
SPORTEX estimates that approximately 1.5 million m2 old sports pitch surfacing is currently replaced every year in the UK. Not only will this recycling technology offer customers a greener alternative, but it will reduce the heavy environmental impact involved in end of life pitches being sent to landfill.
High-profile existing clients span across a range of industries including local authorities, professional sports clubs, universities, schools, Ministry of Defence and the private sector.
The rebrand has been undertaken in partnership with Designhouse, an award-winning brand and design agency.
The new minimalist logo works equally well in black or reversed out white and is designed to be used in ways normally associated with sporting apparel brands. A flexible shorthand version allows for customisation using colours from the secondary palette, inspired by different pitch surfaces, to represent the three key service disciplines: install; maintain; recycle.
Typography is sporty, clean and contemporary and the new graphic system is based on the markings of different sports’ surfaces.
Jamie Blamire, Managing Director of SPORTEX, said: “With a focus on sustainability and environmental issues, we are the only UK company to offer the full portfolio of artificial sports surfacing services. The time was right for us to update our identity and Designhouse understood exactly what we were looking for. We love our bold, new sporty look. We know that our new name and identity is going to support our business growth going forward and allow us to sit down with prospective clients big and small across the UK.”
Designhouse Creative Director, Peter Dobie, said: “As a proud Scot myself, I’m delighted that SPORTEX is the first UK company to pioneer artificial sports surface recycling, a huge step for sustainability within the UK. Our creative challenge was to deliver a new name and visual identity that reflected the established build expertise of the business but also capitalised on the allure of the sports market that it serves. We have designed a new brand identity that hints at lifestyle sports brands, while putting a stamp on the sustainable sports surfaces market. We have given SPORTEX a mark that reflects the huge impact they can make for the UK sports industry.”
The new brand identity has been applied to a redesigned SPORTEX website and social platforms, with plans for a wider rollout across all marketing materials, clothing and livery in the coming months.
For more information on SPORTEX, please click here.