Our Work

WBS, part of Warwick University, is recognised as one of Europe’s leading business schools, and attracts students from all over the world, as well as those already successful in business, to its courses.

The critical academic group embraced our research and strategic approach, fostering a shared understanding within the team. Creating a clear expression of WBS, we built on their entrepreneurial mind-set – developing a positioning and brand line, ‘For the Change Makers’.

A new visual design identity extended the existing core logo, transforming their brand into a transparent cube, a visual puzzle, playing to their values of intellectual curiosity and restlessness. Constantly changing, each facet opens up a new chapter of their ‘Change Maker’ story.

Informa Business Intelligence provide world leading knowledge and information to organisations worldwide via a broad and diverse portfolio of brands.

To create a clear brand strategy and architecture, we first engaged with stakeholders across the globe, identifying ‘competitive advantage’ as the definitive message to best reflect Informa and leverage its unrivalled expertise in delivering advantage to its customers.

The new brand identity, visual language and messaging all centre around this, reinforcing the strength and depth of the offer while creating a clear, navigable architecture under one visual style.

AVEVA is a global leader in engineering and industrial software. Following a recent merger with Schneider Electric, they needed to create a new employer brand proposition.

Using output from the global ‘Culture Cafes’, where they sought views from employees about working at AVEVA, we created AVEVA LIFE – a set of values and narrative centered around limitless possibilities.

Taking cues from their external visual identity we designed a system that called out the values individually whilst coming together to form a unifying mark. The new AVEVA culture was rolled out globally using a launch video, posters and merchandise.

Bank of Ireland was on a new road, with a new CEO and had become a bit stuck in the way they reported their annual results.

For their first year of integrated reporting they looked to us to breathe new life into their Annual Report design heroing their brand purpose ‘Enabling our customers, colleagues and communities to thrive’.

The end result was a step change for the bank with an entirely new look for their Annual Report. We also successfully integrated their Responsible Business review which had been produced separately beforehand.

Two of the UK’s most distinguished universities merged to become the University of Manchester, creating one of the largest and most respected seats of learning in the world.

Cutting through the complexity of merging two institutions, their cultures, stakeholders and audiences, we focussed on what they had in common, past and future – work that is pioneering, influential and exciting.

So the brand identity references the University’s pioneering past, while the visual language embraces its exciting future. Thoughtful brand architecture and a flexible system speak to a diverse range of internal and external audiences.

Winning the CASE Circle of Excellence Award, the Times Higher ‘University of the Year’ and becoming students most popular choice was the icing on the cake.

The TUC has been standing up for workers’ rights, and influencing and progressing policy for 150 years. In today’s more fluid working world, they needed to re-engage with British workers.

We engaged with stakeholders and broader audiences to identify the core truth at the heart of the TUC – whether a worker, a union rep or a TUC member, by standing up and joining together, everyone can make a positive difference.

Turning that truth into a motivating message – ‘Changing the world of work for good’ – we brought it to life with a fresh dynamic identity and visual language that now resonates with a new generation of workers.

WINNER: ‘Best Visual Identity from the Public Sector‘ (Bronze) Transform Awards, Europe 2018

IMPAX Asset Management Group acquired Pax World Management in September 2017 to extend their position as a leading investment manager focused on the transition to a more sustainable economy. They turned to us to create a unified, simpler architecture and visual identity for this new company.

The identity system we created shows all of IMPAX’s businesses belonging to the same family, while allowing flexibility for separate names. We designed a brand that reflects the investment manager’s positioning, applied it to printed and digital collateral, and supplied guidelines for IMPAX to implement the brand internally.

The new logo and design system gave the global firm a fresher, modern identity.It positions IMPAX Asset Management as pioneers of sustainable investing by creating a forward arrow from their name-style, so they are literally leading the way.

Actorum is a leading talent management agency and the world’s first actors’ co-operative.

Originally established in 1974, Actorum needed to refresh their identity. As one of our senior team is also a member (as an accomplished actor himself), we couldn’t resist taking up the challenge to help them share their unique business model with the world. We developed their new elevator pitch, positioning them as a credible alternative to the big, more conventional, Personal Management Agents.

Our brand design brought this new positioning to life with a new logo, visually representing the action of the different members coming together to form Actorum. We also created the descriptive strapline ‘Managing talent since ‘74’, which reinforces their heritage.

Homes England is the government’s new housing accelerator, tasked with driving positive change and making possible the new homes England needs.

With a big change in scale, investment, energy and urgency Homes England needed an identity that summarised its new position to multiple private and public audiences. After in-depth stakeholder engagement we summarised a unified brand purpose and narrative, encapsulating these within the brand line ‘Making Homes Happen’.

Our visual identity system is inspired by organic shapes that seamlessly connect and adapt, reflecting the idea of partnership making places possible and celebrating the people that come together to make those places thriving communities. A modern, innovative and confident visual identity to help Homes England break new ground.

A university with so many positive stories to tell, and so many compelling reasons to believe, yet Durham lacked a clear and unifying brand message.

Engaging with a range of stakeholders, we conducted in-depth research to discover Durham’s distinctive quality – its inspirational environment, ethos and academic approach, enabling its people to achieve extraordinary things at Durham and beyond. All this we encapsulated within the brand line ‘Inspiring the extraordinary’.

With an intriguing and constantly innovating graphic language, we created a ‘Modern-day Tapestry’, a new look showcasing Durham as the globally outstanding, inclusive and forward-looking university it truly is. Using inspiring imagery and a brighter colour palette Durham now has a modern, distinctive and innovative visual identity system.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) guides trustees, advisers, and employers in their responsibilities, making sure workplace pensions best practice is common practice.

With so many non-expert audiences, absolute clarity of TPR’s role and powers is crucial. After in-depth stakeholder engagement, research and analysis, we articulated a clear brand purpose and narrative, crafting the new tag line ‘Making workplace pensions work’.

Our new identity heroes TPR as a positive regulator, playing out the idea of targeting and focusing their resources on the good management of workplace pensions for scheme members. Inspired by a magnifying glass, this expresses TPR’s firm but fair approach to help people get it right, while promising scrutiny and accountability when they don’t.

WINNER: ‘Best Visual Identity from the Public Sector‘ (Bronze) Transform Awards, Europe 2019

Abellio is a major multi-national train and bus franchise operator and our client for over 4 years.

Our work represents an end-to-end employee and culture development programme from initial research, strategy and narrative and design through to all support and ongoing activities.

We brought their vision to life by creating ‘The Abellio Way’ – a strategic framework to provide a common, consistent, collaborative way of working for all employees acknowledging that there’s a story behind each customer journey and is more significant than going from a-to-b.

A major milestone for the business was our creation of the annual employee achievement awards recognising and celebrating excellence across the group, and linking the awards back to their values and brand narrative.

Our ongoing partnership with the Houses of Parliament addresses the complex task of creating consistent and effective brand communications which are relevant and accessible for both a living museum and a workplace housing thousands of people.

From educational exhibitions on Victorian satirists to internal communications, our work with the Houses of Parliament is broad and varied, engaging and raising awareness in public and staff alike on the work of Parliament and its historical and modern impact on society.

ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) provides expert, impartial, and free advice on good practice, as well as support in finding solutions when workplace relationships go wrong.

Inconsistencies in their brand arose following an expansion in their range of channels, so they turned to us to create a more distinctive and consistent approach. After an intense period of qualitative stakeholder research with all stakeholders, we created a narrative ‘story’ and identity that aligns successfully to their vision and values.

Alluding to their core purpose of encouraging people to work together to resolve workplace problems, the identity references the idea of interaction through the overlapping letterforms. These become the hero of the visual language, creating an illustration style and a holding device for imagery.

Supported by print and digital assets, a brand video and detailed brand guidelines, this brand refresh helps to promote the positive impact Acas has in the workplace and on the British economy.

Obsessive about equestrian pursuits, our clients had carefully restored their historic premises (Britain’s first Gunnery School) to house a modern company rooted in British tradition – the art of fine horsemanship. We created a name and identity to reflect both the history of the place and the passion of those behind the business – The Drillshed.

Our finely crafted logo depicts the restored Gunnery Drill Shed, reflecting the authenticity and history of both the building and the traditions of equestrianism.

Wesleyan is a specialist mutual society, looking after the very specific needs of doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers for over 170 years. Special because they are specialist.

We engaged with stakeholders and advised on a clear brand positioning and architecture that heroed their unrivalled knowledge of the customer, ‘We are all about you’. Enabling each sector to speak with one voice.

Creating a brand that tells this unique story and frames the special relationship between client and adviser – told through a distinct visual language and confident messaging that heroes the ‘We’ in Wesleyan.

Informa Healthcare Live is the leading provider for live events and digital platforms bringing professionals together in the healthcare sector.

Formerly known as Informa Life Sciences it had recently merged with UBM significantly increasing its portfolio and global market share. The brief was to create a brand identity and architecture that accurately conveyed its proposition, simplified how it was expressed and capitalised on their critical mass.

Taking inspiration from the idea of people coming together, we created a design system heroing two arrows connecting to form a positive and recognisable healthcare symbol. Colour ways were developed for the different divisions to provide flex across the multiple brands whilst unifying the complete healthcare portfolio.

Avora is an AI Analytics software. It was born to challenge business intelligence and data analytics conventions. The company is growing rapidly and needed a brand and website that reflected their ambition, ethos, and position at the forefront of AI driven analytics for the enterprise.

The CMO came to us looking for a fresh and distinctive visual design to last for years to come. The new identity needed to convey the spirit and culture of the company; it had to be challenging and disruptive, but also reassuring and confident. They asked us to evolve their logo marque, improve the application of the brand and change the structure, as well as the design of their website to improve user journeys and make avora.com stand out from competition.

We created a visual identity, comprising of a revised logo and new design system that portrays Avora as pioneers of augmented analytics by graphically creating a unique, continuous data stream that embraces the user and heroes the idea of human touch – crucial for informed decision-making and business success. We then applied the new design to a list of brand templates and assets such as a sting for their corporate videos, newsletters, social media channels, exhibition stands, product ‘one-pagers’ and, of course, to the new website (live now) which we wireframed, designed, built and launched.

The House of Commons employs some 3000 people who together help keep the wheels of democracy in motion. With a new mission, vision and set of values, they had all the right ingredients but needed help to bring all this together and create a significant culture change programme.

With a mixture of desk based and remote workers the challenge was to get a distinct and even disruptive message out to the entire workforce to illustrate the commitment to change and to invite everyone to get involved. Through a combination of desk research and employee focus groups we delved deeper into the overall themes and motivators to create an authentic overall culture change message: ‘Everyone has a voice. How will you use yours?’

This was unpacked visually by hero-ing every ‘voice’ as a simple speech bubble telling its unique story, suggesting the idea of collective voices to give rise to an inclusive and supportive culture. Together with the design concept we also provided ideas for a memorable launch event programme and ongoing communication techniques to further educate and embed the activity. It was successfully launched in January 2020 through a series of training sessions, using display graphics, role play and video to officially start the initiative and capture real stories and examples of employees living the values. We also designed templates and campaign style guidelines for further ongoing communications.

Gowling WLG is an international law firm with over 1400 legal professionals in 19 cities across the world.

After conducting extensive stakeholder and customer journey experience research, we developed a new positioning to best express a combined culture and history, while encompassing a modern approach to the practice, business and process of law – that good relationships power exponential success for everyone.

We applied this new positioning across multiple channels and created a new modular content and literature system. In parallel we developed a new process and playbook for innovation at the firm, then brought their suite of innovations to life through a video/animation launching the firm’s digital service offering, improving the experience for both clients and staff culture.

The Thames Estuary is a tapestry of places – from the London boroughs of Barking & Dagenham and Bexley, to the shores of Kent and Essex, taking in Gravesend, Chatham, Canterbury, Margate, Tilbury, Southend and more. With no obvious single location and many past false starts, it is a place branding and marketing challenge like no other.

With an embarrassment of riches to choose from, we homed in on a distinctive strength – ‘good green growth’ – to pull together all the other ingredients for an overall positioning. But this is place branding that goes beyond the place itself. So we also highlight the critical role of the people leading this brand – The Envoy and her board – in connecting, activating and making things happen.

Building on our new positioning – ‘We’re in a good place. Join us.’ – we created a bold, visual identity, new web site, explainer video, image library (photo shoot during Covid), in-video game content, branded launch (on a Thames Clipper) and more. Watch this space as we support this impressive new brand with ongoing marketing.

UCLan is one of the UK’s largest universities with 400 undergraduate and 200 postgraduate courses across 20 academic schools. As a long-established institution of impressive scale and significant positive impact on the world, our challenge was to develop a story and identity that would give the University the confidence and recognition it deserves.

We conducted extensive research and populated our model to unlock its brand purpose: ‘We believe in helping people to seize every opportunity to flourish in education, at work and for life’, all rooted in the stories that were shared during the research. From the purpose, we created a new narrative that would appeal to the institution’s audiences and developed the empowering tagline ‘Where opportunity creates success’.

We then created a new identity that played to the University’s strengths but also looked to the future with more confidence and gravitas. We re-created the logo, a contemporary and unique marque drawn from distinct elements in the University crest – the roses, ‘1828’, their motto, the open book and shield – to come together and hero the spirit of opportunity UCLan offers to all. From the angles in the logo, we derived graphic devices that were used to create dynamic applications characterised by vibrant imagery and a bright colour palette, inspired by the motto ‘From the Earth to The Sun’. The whole rebrand is helping the University see a real gear change, as well as increased consistency and cohesion across its world.