Project Overview
As Frank Lloyd Wright famously said: “Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one.” We debated that with Alvarium and landed somewhere beautiful.
Alvarium is a UK-based interior design firm. Forget a karate chop to a well-placed scatter cushion. Alvarium designs specialized interiors for high-performing scientific, educational, and corporate communities.
The business had been growing rapidly and it was time to rethink their brand. They wanted to shift the brand into the future and needed to evolve it into something more relevant and meaningful that would truly reflect their expertise, collaborative approach, and highly-regarded technical design capabilities. Creatik was brought on board to define the brand strategy, evolve its brand identity, and implement the new brand across multiple touchpoints.
“Creatik’s approach to the project was truly innovative. They challenged our thinking and pushed us to consider new perspectives, ultimately resulting in a brand identity that is both bold and sophisticated.” – Nathan Bedwell, Director, Alvarium.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Kylie Gould – Director
Dan Clark – Creative Director
Louise Thomas – Strategy Director and Copywriter
Kasia Froncek – Senior Designer
Pam Donaghy – Project Manager
Project Brief
The goal was to shift the brand into the future. We had the opportunity to define their brand strategy and develop new brand identity concepts, with everything on the table. However, Alvarium emphasized the significance of the previous wordmark due to its connection to the name (Alvarium is Latin for "Beehive"), the geometric precision of the original logo, and the intricate design of the symbol, a hexagon within a hexagon incorporating a central 3D cube.
For context, specialist interior design is a bit of a silent partner in the architectural and built environment mix. Despite this niche’s low market presence, the key word here is ‘partner’, with many architects and engineers using their preferred interior design specialists as a bit of a secret weapon. Our research and review of the industry, competitive mix, peers, and high-profile industry events highlighted the following:
• Although Alvarium has a low profile outside its network, collaboration, teamwork, and personal commitment & approach are what people value most about working with them.
• Over the past 20+ years, their business has grown organically through longstanding relationships and recommendations from a close network.
• Other firms with similar expertise are more prominent and larger and tend to have a less personal approach.
• As a smaller firm, Alvarium has a notable personal approach that makes them agile and adaptive to changes in the fast-moving market and economic environment.
Project Innovation/Need
Through a series of discovery sessions, we developed their brand strategy and purpose statement centred around their belief that people are the most important consideration in every project: “We are passionate believers that form and function should follow people and that the purpose of every building—inside and out—should help people thrive. While the needs of each space varies greatly, they all have one thing in common: people.”
We further distilled their strategy into a brand essence, ‘People Powered Design,’ along with a tagline to articulate the benefit and purpose that drives the business forward: ‘Spaces made to inspire.’
With a clear strategy in place, the design team started by addressing some of the inconsistencies in the original wordmark and graphic device and then set about creating solutions that would reflect the new brand strategy and help achieve the objectives.
The idea for the new graphic device came from a stylised letter A– structured from 9 squares –representing planning and ideation of the built environment. Accompanied by a bold sentence case wordmark, from a bespoke version of Stevie Sans. Its neutrality provides a warm mix of curves and corners to complement the graphic device. The structure and individual forms of the graphic device can be used as a flexible shape language across multiple assets. A subtle nod to their network and collaborative approach. The colour palette is a rich mix of warm orange hues tempered by charcoal black, grey and softer natural tones.
Design Challenge
Our task was to evolve Alvarium's brand identity to better reflect their expertise, collaborative approach, and highly regarded technical design capabilities.
Nathan Bedwell, Director at Alvarium, explained, "Our main challenges involved creating a brand identity that conveyed our creativity and expertise while also showcasing our forward-thinking approach and commitment to innovation and collaboration."
We were eager to test the boundaries of what an evolution might look like for Alvarium, aiming to balance respect for the established brand elements with a fresh, innovative perspective that highlighted their dynamic and progressive nature.
Effectiveness
To substantiate the effectiveness of our work on the Alvarium rebrand project, we're proud to share a testimonial from Nathan Bedwell, Director at Alvarium. His words highlight the transformative impact of our efforts and underscore the collaborative spirit that defined our partnership:
“The new brand strategy and design have breathed new life into the Alvarium brand. Our successful rebranding has not only shifted the Alvarium brand into the future but also effectively showcased the expertise, collaborative approach, and technical design capabilities of the Alvarium team. We stayed true to the thinking behind the original brand design and retained elements of the geometry and angles.
From the very first meeting, Creatik impressed us with their attentiveness to our needs and their ability to translate our vision into a cohesive brand strategy. Throughout the concept creation stage, they presented a variety of unique and thought-provoking ideas that sparked engaging discussions amongst the Alvarium team. The process to reach the final product was collaborative and the Creatik team willingly took on our feedback at all stages of the project to reach the final design.
Creatik’s design exceeded our expectations on every level, it captures the essence of Alvarium perfectly. Beyond their creative expertise, what sets Creatik apart is their collaborative spirit. They fostered a strong sense of teamwork throughout the entire project, ensuring that our voices were heard and that our feedback was incorporated into the final product.” Nathan Bedwell. Director, Alvarium.
Graphic Design - Identity and Branding - Property - Services
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching information style to audience.
More Details