Brand Identity and Guidelines

Whether brands need help finding their identity, or just getting it down on paper, I've been lucky enough to play a part in defining brands, naming initiatives and creating guidelines across a range of industries. Projects I'm proud of include challenger brand Sano, established games giant Codemasters, the Californian fitness giant MINDBODY, LOVEFiLM and a new, corporate-focused arm of Barts Charity.

If you've come to this site to see words, you're in luck!

MINDBODY - UK Tone and Voice

As a foundation for the advertising campaign, I created a UK Tone and Voice guide so that MINDBODY's internal teams would understand how to connect with the UK audience and not come across as an American trying to sound British. As well as the right language and tone, an essential ingredient was helping the team to understand the context: what state of mind would people be in when they saw the MINDBODY messages?

As part of the guide, which covered brand values, voice and approach, I also wrote five interlocking stories that got into the heads of five of the audience segments and explored how they were feeling when they saw the campaign on their travels.

Sano

I was part of the team which created the branding and identity for Sano, a challenger food brand which was looking to empower people with new knowledge about nutrition… as well as sell them lots of delicious food of course.

We created the brand from scratch, and in addition to a visual point of difference, I needed to ensure that Sano’s revolutionary and challenging approach was communicated both externally and internally.

Visually we explored vibrant colours to reflect Sano’s fresh way of thinking, and developed a dual visual which brought to life the meeting point of science and a passion for food.

When it came to how this brand communicated, I focused on giving it a voice which would be heard above the standard health food chatter.

Through a challenging manifesto, to a range of beliefs & behaviours and a tone of voice guide, I defined not just how Sano should sound, but how it should approach communication as a whole.

Manifesto

This is where your life changes: where a passion for food and health meets nutritional science. The result is a radically new approach to eating and wellbeing, one based on facts, not fads and one that puts the knowledge of how to eat and live better in your hands. It all starts with a fresh way of thinking.

Join the nutrition revolution.

Codemasters

When games publisher Codemasters needed a rebrand, I worked closely with a top designer to not only write the guidelines in a practical way, but also to engage, excite and entertain at the same time.

The identity was split into 'work' and 'play', to match the new interlocking C and M logo design. Obviously when it came to colours, fonts and clear areas, there wasn't too much leeway, but high energy introductory pages and a range of creative examples, including a mini-manifesto, helped to bring the whole thing to life.

LOVEFiLM

Before LOVEFiLM became part of Amazon, I wrote some fun brand identity and usage guidelines that meant the designer and I could indulge in all kinds of visual and written film referencing.