We combine research and strategy with thoughtful design to create, communicate and build brands and identities that transform businesses and deliver measurable value.

Brandtone – a brand for emerging markets

30 August 2010

Brandtone, a start-up company, has launched a pioneering mobile marketing campaign solution for FMCG products in emerging markets. Initially working with major brands in South Africa, Brandtone is expanding into the emerging markets of South America and Asia, and is also working with emerging brands in Europe. Brandtone's target clients are multinational consumer brand companies. As a business-to-business (B2B) service, Brandtone works on behalf of those clients by creating and delivering mobile-based marketing campaigns. Their innovative end-to-end campaign offering positions them as the potential market leader in this rapidly evolving space. Our role was to create a corporate brand identity that would enable Brandtone to communicate effectively with both Western and emerging market companies and to form the basis of a powerful global B2B brand.

We worked with the Brandtone management team to clarify the company's vision, values, corporate personality and market positioning. We created a vibrant B2B brand mark using strong typography and a bespoke graphic icon that symbolises the partnership of the consumer and the FMCG brand on the one hand and that of Brandtone and their client on the other. 

 

We designed Brandtone's visual language to facilitate the company's growing communications need across digital and print media. It is flexible in application, so as to relate to both the European corporate sensibilites of its direct clients and to the more dynamic approach needed in emerging markets. The striking colour palette of rich red and burnt orange captures both the entrepreneurial spirit of the Brandtone team and the vibrant energy of those markets.

 

ISE suite of regulatory rulebooks

19 July 2010

 

As part of our re-branding of the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE), we redesigned their complete suite of regulatory rulebooks. These rulebooks are used by member companies as a daily reference to the legal trading rules of the ISE markets.

This suite of books forms an integral part of the new ISE branding system. Our use of bespoke visual patterns, strong clear typography, and distinctive colour-coding ensures that these complex documents are delivered in the most coherent and user-friendly manner.

Because these rulebooks are a constant reference source, they represent one of the key brand touchpoints for the ISE. We identified this significant fact and for that reason we worked closely with the printing company to significantly improve the printed quality, durability and utility of these rulebooks. These new rulebooks reaffirm the qualities of the ISE brand to its clients every time that they are used.

 

Taxi Regulator's Strategy Statement 2010-2014

26 May 2010

We worked with the Commission for Taxi Regulation to produce their latest Strategy Statement for 2010–2014. This publication outlines the Commission's key Strategic Objectives for the next five years, so our design needed to present these commitments as clearly as possible within this 36 page report.

Each of the key Strategic Objectives are presented in a clear and concise format, and are legible at a glance. We selected a more sophisticated, understated and subdued colour palette which allows the information to be the primary focal point of our design.

It is important that this publication represent every facet of the Small Public Service Vehicle industry (including wheelchair-accessible taxis, hackneys and limousines). Therefore our dynamic cover design incorporates an inclusive selection of photographs edited together to create a large three-dimensional T-motif. This T-shape is also featured as a recurring background pattern throughout the report denoting section breaks between chapters and objectives. The visual style we have established with this Strategy Statement will also form the basis for the related Action Plans that the Commission intends to publish during its five year duration.

Irish Stock Exchange brand identity

10 May 2010

The Irish Stock Exchange's vision is to be the leading European specialist exchange business and the most agile market operator for, and in partnership with, Irish and international capital market participants. We have created a comprehensive brand identity system for the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) designed to support their key strategic objectives.

Daryl Byrne, Head of Strategy Planning & Brand at ISE says "BFK understood the complex strategic issues at the heart of our branding brief and distilled those into a powerful, consistent and flexible identity system that equips us to deliver greater consistency in all of our interactions with our customers and stakeholders, and facilitates our business development objectives."

The centrepiece of the new brand identity system is our updated brand mark which presents a modern face for an organisation with over one hundred years of history. We have given more emphasis to the ISE name and we have redefined the castle element from within the existing crest as the basis for the new modernised crest symbol.

Our new brand identity system also unites the previously disparate identities of the ISE's three markets under a unified brand architecture. The markets were renamed and rationalised as part of the branding project. Their new marks strongly associate them with ISE and better communicate the breadth of the exchange's offering.

In what is a rarity now, this new brand identity is not being rolled out on a phased basis. Everything is being switched over on Monday 10 May 2010. Our project management expertise and processes ensured that over 140 discrete rebranded instances (everything from signage to stationery) were completed on schedule.

All thirteen of the ISE's listing rule books have been redesigned and republished. Initially, they will be the most prominent examples of the new ISE brand patterns––a unique suite of visual iconography that forms an integral part of the new corporate identity system.

We have created a comprehensive suite of over eighty digital documents and forms. All of the various forms used by ISE clients now share common layout conventions, consistent structures and visual appearance. We enhanced the implementation of this suite of documents with on-site training for the relevant ISE personnel, giving them confident ownership of the digital assets they will be managing.

We also wrote and produced a detailed brand management publication that records all of the decisions taken to date and gives guidance on how to implement the ISE brand identity system in the future.

 

Brand mark for National Asset Management Agency

12 March 2010

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is the Irish Government agency established "to address the serious threat to the economy and the stability of credit institutions in the State generally and the need for the maintenance and stabilisation of the financial system in the State...".

In essence the National Asset Management Agency is a State agency with a commercial remit to acquire loans from banks and other participating institutions and to hold, dispose of, or develop the property assets related to these loans so as to achieve the best possible return for the State over a period of seven to ten years. Thus NAMA is essentially in the property business while also having a significant role in relation to the stability of our financial institutions.

In order to fulfil this weighty and economically important remit NAMA needs to be perceived to be connected to the State, but not part of it. It needs also to reflect the core values: strong, fleet-footed and discrete.

To reflect these and other attributes we created a direct, striking and effective corporate identity mark combining a unique harp symbol with the organisation's name.

The logotype uses the complete name in preference to the acronym NAMA, so as to better communicate the full weight and authority of the body. The typographic treatment contributes to the appropriate corporate positioning by using a contemporary serif typeface. The stylised modern gold harp reinforces the organisation's nature as an agency of the Irish state.

Overall this corporate identity mark is formal and understated and in keeping with the nature of this agency.