Cardboard engineering meets industrial engineering

Posted by Jennifer Omran, Creative, RLA group

We love pop–up storybooks here at RLA Towers. Nothing puts a smile on our faces faster than hidden flaps, exploding fold outs and pull down arrows, and that’s before we’ve even re–acquainted ourselves with the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

What’s that got to do with Johnson Controls, one of the world’s largest building efficiency corporations, you might think? Well, read on.

We were tasked to come up with three brochures looking at various aspects of Johnson Controls’ business, from retrofitting and service solutions to a general overview of the company. Rather than crack out generic, corporate publications that wouldn’t excite or inspire anyone very much, least of all the bright spark JCI engineers, we took an entirely different approach.

Inspired both by the engaging nature of children’s books and the delicate art of paper folding, we created a distinct theme for each of the three brochures: a Spot the Dog–esque reveal function in the overview brochure, a gatefolded beautiful water colour of a fictitious Johnson–town to highlight the benefits of retrofitting, and an exploding fold out to explain JCI’s service agreements offering.

The result? Beautifully crafted brochures that you can’t help looking at and playing with, thus sneakily ensuring that our complex messages get across good and proper. Meg and Mog would be proud.