For 22 years our identity has been based on the “flask and flowers”, an iconic representation of the combination of science and creativity which we have always brought to all our projects.
However in recent times we felt that this predominantly black and white identity was becoming a little tired in what is a significantly-changed (and ever-changing) environment. Furthermore the combination of art and science, while still relevant, has increasingly become a consultancy generic, something which all our competitors had started to claim.
So we wanted a new identity – that was going to be the same but different. It needed to reflect the fact that we are still brand-focused and brand-led, that we’re still solving difficult marketing problems for our clients but now we’re doing it with more depth, experience and variety to our offer. We have over the years expanded our focus from Branding, Strategy and Innovation, to establishing thriving practices in Insight, Closeness and Capabilities.
We also recognised that we are now competing in a different market – from being amongst the first to create and sell “brand consultancy” it is now more important for us to differentiate ourselves within it. So we did onto ourselves what we so often do with clients – exploring who we are as a brand and what makes us different – and in end it came down to our thinking.
We believe we deliver cut-through thinking, helping our clients out-think, out-manoeuvre and out-pace their competition. Our thinking (and our body of Engineers) encompasses a spectrum of approaches and methods, from literal to lateral, from intuitive to rigorous, from analytical to analogical, from deviant to random. Ultimately however what our thinking does though, is help create clarity from complexity: it comes together to provide strong actionable recommendations and solutions. Solutions that will help our clients create value through brands and branding.
Other elements of our approach and our personality fed into the brief too. We wanted a design that used modern, fresh, contemporary colours, depicting the rich variety of people and thinking styles, that captured the collaborative nature of our approach to projects – the coming together and working together that characterises our style. We wanted a design with life, vitality and dynamism. We didn’t want much – we wanted it all!
We’re delighted with the results from our in-house design and consultancy team who worked so hard to deliver our new identity and hope you like it too.
Here are some of the designs which didn’t make the final cut…
