While you might not know Atomic, you definitely know their work.
Atomic was founded in 1993 by Tom McPhillips, a veteran scenic designer who made a name for himself doing shows for musicians like Michael Jackson, The Who, and Ozzie Ozborne. Tom founded Atomic in Lititz, PA—adding production and rental in addition to design. Soon, Atomic was working for the likes of MTV, Nike, Warner Brothers, and Formula 1.
Warming the engines
Our early engagements with Atomic tended to be smaller projects—special pieces that incorporated Atomic’s original logo and branding, created by founder Tom McPhilips himself. Our work was largely focused on capturing Atomic’s quirky, imaginative spirit in a mix of booklets, broadsheets, and offbeat objects.
A New Frontier
Atomic had become a giant within their industry. With that success, though, they’d begun to feel that their visual identity didn’t quite represent them anymore, and it wasn’t working well on digital platforms. They tapped us to help reimagine it.
We toured facilities, immersed ourselves in company culture, and conducted staff interviews to build a fresh, modern identity that would honor Tom’s original vision for the company.
Lititz, we have a problem
Several years after introducing their new visual identity, Atomic’s growth continued at an impressive rate. They’d opened offices around the world—and doubled their team to more than 100 “voyagers.”
But while Atomic wasn’t slowing down, their 10-year-old website was. The code was breaking down, and the constant patches and workarounds were getting tiresome. Atomic was also struggling to portray their extensive range of services and rental products in a way visitors could wrap their heads around.
Setting a new trajectory
We sat down with a range of product and service specialists to really understand what makes each of Atomic’s offerings special. We also heard from their marketing team, and brainstormed ways to add whimsical, immersive design elements throughout the site. Atomic didn’t want to lose their personality in the process of building a more polished, elevated website.
It’s not rocket science
Traditionally, if you want to design a set, you have two options: an expensive custom build, or boring, generic rentals. Atomic’s Modular Systems offer a unique, third option. They’re a range of “building blocks” that snap, zip, or lock together to create a rental set that’s totally your own.
However, Atomic had always struggled to communicate this concept on their website. So we dug into Atomic’s Modular Systems, reorganizing the products and showing how they work together with super-simple graphics. Easy peasy.
Unidentified Atomic objects
Atomic had no shortage of incredible case studies. But Atomic told us that most would-be customers had a similar reaction: “That’s amazing. What am I looking at?” Because the products work together so seamlessly, it’s hard to know what’s what. We integrated hover states that allow users to see what each product in a case study actually is—and learn more about it with a click.
Infantree delivered on all the goals we had set for our new website. They crafted a site for us with significant upgrades in functionality while perfectly capturing our personality in the design. They dug deep in the research phase to learn what we needed, collaborated with our team throughout the process, and applied their insights to create a site that matched our needs perfectly.
Chloe Rich
Vice President of Brand Strategy