Branding and Visual Identity

Our approach to branding

Think of branding as how people talk about your organisation when you’re not in the room. How do you feel your organisation is coming across? 

Is everyone speaking with the same tone of voice? And does this match your strategic vision? Does your logo look great on every channel, or is there confusion within senior management about why investing in branding matters?

With our collaborative approach, we can help your purpose-led brand, charity or social enterprise become professional, engaging and trusted by your audiences. Our flexible process can involve the conceptual work of tying a communications strategy to your visual identity, as well as the practical needs such as ensuring your colours are digitally accessible. 

Our outputs vary according to the client and the brief, but we always avoid jargon and ‘design speak’. While we will talk you through mood boards, we’ll never talk about ‘love marks’ or ‘reaching out going forward’!

Our typical branding process includes the following steps:

Research

We’ll really get to know your organisation, understanding your history, personality, values, tone, aspirations and more. We’ll combine this with a design analysis of your competitors and peers so we know the best – and worst – of your sector. 

Our work for World Physiotherapy involved delving into the organisation’s design and identity to truly understand its heritage. 

Brief

Together, we’ll interrogate the brief, find directions to explore or avoid and ensure everyone’s on the same page about scope, deliverables and process. 

Strategy

The branding process can be like taking someone shopping for new clothes. If the organisation has traditionally shopped at Liberty but is thinking TK Maxx might be more in line with where they are now, then that’s where we need to help bring people with us. 

Our strategy workshops involve bringing key stakeholders together, from board members to volunteers, to define vision, audiences and channels – and then ensuring they’re prioritised. 

Mood boards

We’ll create mood boards to explore initial design directions and present them to you for feedback. This is casting our net wide to find the edges of what’s possible and involves graphic styles, illustration, photography, typography and colour, for starters. 

Our revitalised brand for FORWARD uses pattern as a key part of their identity, hinting at African heritage without patronising it. 

Explorations

We’ll carry out further experiments and design investigations based on your feedback, towards logos and/or wordmark concepts. Our work with LGBT rights organisation Human Dignity Trust shows just some of the many examples we explored during the process.

Once we’ve agreed one or two final routes, we’ll apply these to assets (letterheads, tote bags, T-shirts etc) so you can visualise your new brand coming to life. We’ll then finesse these based on your feedback. 

This usually includes logos, colours and typography, with potential for other brand needs – iconography, illustration, photography and more.  

Strategic guidelines

Following our earlier workshops, we can also explore what outputs will help guide your organisation. We work with the best consultants in the business to co-create Tone of Voice guidelines, content strategies, communications toolkits or marketing plans – see more on our Digital Strategy page. 

Assets

Once you’re entirely happy with your new visual identity, we’ll produce all your final assets and in-depth brand guidelines – giving your team a unique visual identity that expresses your organisation’s values and personality.