NIO — Business Innovation
How can EVs bring blue skies?
By focussing on people, community and experience.
Shared impact
1,000,000+ Vehicles delivered.620,000+ User Community.
NYSE IPO in 2018.
A million cars later, NIO employs over 40,000 globally, is publicly traded, has launched three brands, and gained acclaim for innovations like its battery swap service, NOMI AI companion, and NIO Life ecosystem.
Across hundreds of projects we’ve partnered with the founding team to build a company that’s inherently driven by design.
A user-enterprise,
built inside-out.
The founding idea of NIO was to be much more than a car company.
William envisioned a ‘user-enterprise’ — a community-driven brand that makes smart EVs the natural choice for all, ultimately leading to a more sustainable future.
We share the belief that successful brands are built inside-out, with employees, investors and suppliers sharing a unifying culture, before crafting consumer-facing aspects.
So, we started with a series of workshops with the founding team, defining an enduring brand strategy around the vision of ‘Blue Sky Coming’, with a purpose to ‘shape a joyful lifestyle’.
From there, we collaborated on creating NIO’s Experience Principles and Design DNA, to shape a brand expression across all touchpoints.
A brand which
brings the blue sky.
Inspired by ‘Blue Sky Coming’, we crafted a sensory identity system to express the essence of the brand across vehicles, spaces, apps, and beyond.
The logo is the perfect distillation of this — vision and action: the upper half representing the promise of a better tomorrow; and the lower half depicting the journey there.
We created continuity between the brand’s Chinese origins and international ambitions: the Chinese name ‘Weilai’ (蔚来), means ‘Blue Sky Coming’, while the global name ‘NIO’ conveys the spirit of a new day.
‘Blue Sky’ also inspired the wider identity: with a colour palette inspired by hues of the sky, we developed a full system that includes iconography, custom typography, illustration, and art direction.
"It was really important that we had the top design talent looking at all elements, and success was to create a really memorable, iconic, and well-designed logo."
Building a unique
360° brand world
What truly sets NIO apart from all other automotive brands today is a focus on the holistic brand experience.
Guided by SVP Kris Tomasson, we worked to map out a 360° brand world including vehicle concepts, community spaces, charging infrastructure, lifestyle products, services and digital touchpoints, and launch events in London, Austin, and Shanghai.
We brought all our studio’s expertise to bear realising this blend of experiences, moving from the big picture to meticulously crafting a staggering range of products and services.
From Nomi to NIO Life, vehicle interiors to launch communications, merchandise to charging, the design DNA ensured a rapidly-populating NIO world stayed coherent, joyful, and driven by design.
"We were very lucky we met forpeople... from the first contact we knew that forpeople were the agency we were looking for."
Our work helped to unify the company, with a clear mission and values to live every day — and created a voice that’s recognised and trusted worldwide.
Ultimately, NIO has become renowned for superior user experiences, enabling them to establish a strong following and foothold in the fiercely competitive global EV market.
View Project NIO House
Can showrooms inspire community?
Coming Soon Onvo
How do families voyage to better?
View Project Firefly
What makes an EV brand spark?
- Curious about who we are?
- Or how we could work together?
- What else we've done lately?
- Or even what we're thinking?
