Gunter Metals: a brand identity designed with AI in four days

The situation

Like most trades businesses, this one ran through the owner. Quotes, orders and questions all came to his phone, and the website did little more than list a number to call. He needed a brand that looked like the work he does, and a storefront that works like a good counter clerk: customers figure out what they need, get a price and order, with AI doing real work behind it.

Designing the identity with AI

The brand took four days and a lot of iteration. I used Claude as a design partner through every step I would normally run with a studio team:

• Research. A competitive map of regional shops and a mood board built from real steel: mill scale, galvanizing, powder coat.
• A surface study. How bare, galvanized and powder-coated steel actually read on screen, so the brand colors come from the material instead of a trend.
• Letterform research. Monogram and stencil studies, then a wordmark drawn to be manufactured. The bridges in the letters are sized to what a torch and the sheet can hold.
• Iteration at speed. Many rounds across Claude, Illustrator and Figma. AI widened the options and pressure-tested them; I made the calls.

AI didn't design the brand. It made it possible for one person to do a studio's worth of exploring in a week, and to spend the saved time on the decisions that matter.

Building the storefront

• An opening that shows the craft. The storefront opens with the wordmark being cut from a steel sheet, then gets out of the way so customers can shop.
• Ordering in shop language. A phone-first flow where a customer picks the metal, the shape and the size, then types a cut list the way they'd say it at the counter, with live totals.
• One lead pipeline. Service and commercial estimate requests land in a single queue, so nothing lives only in a text message.
• A catalog AI can read. Product and pricing rules sit in plain, tested files, so the same logic serves the website, AI shopping assistants and future tools for contractors.

Why it matters for your business

The AI part only works because the business rules were written down first. What the shop takes on, how a cut list gets checked, and how work gets priced all became files every tool reads from. That's the same foundation the free AI Foundation Kit helps you build.