Brandy

When is a business card not a business card? Answer – when it needs to be carried by a personal trainer.

Natalie Harman – Brandy’s official personal trainer (!) – gets all her new clients while she’s out training her existing ones, in the park or down the gym. So when designing her business cards we had to think a bit laterally. They needed to be carried easily by her and by those out running or working out. The silicone wristband was the perfect solution. All details are pressed into the bands and she can wear a wristful at any time, ready to hand over to prospective trainees.

Finally we asked the question, ‘If you were a colour, what would you be?’. ‘Black & white stripes with red lipstick’ was the answer. The rest was easy.

Ralph Pool Management is an up and coming music management business. They asked Brandy to create an identity that would reflect their deep knowledge of music heritage, with a contemporary twist.

The gem in this brief was the name – abbreviating to the fantastically appropriate acronym ‘RPM’. The vinyl record reference here (33rpm, 45rpm etc) was too good to ignore – the perfect symbol of music heritage.

The next step was to give the vinyl a contemporary edge. So we melted some old LPs in the oven and shot them with a great photographer to create a suite of abstract brand imagery. Vinyl reinvented.

Onto the logotype. We started with pure circles – to reflect the shape of records – and built the letterforms by changing as little as possible. The simpler the logo, the better.

Bring it all together and you have a powerful and distinct brand identity that works consistently across all media.

TalentMax is a talent retention consultancy – they help businesses identify and keep the talent in their workforce – ultimately creating leaner and more efficient organisations.

Our task was to help define what the brand stood for and to turn that into a powerful, cost-effective brand identity. Our answer was simple – what TalentMax really do is make companies fitter. By maximising talent, they reduce inefficiencies. They increase company muscle, which reduces the fat.

This idea gave us an ownable brand language system: “MAXIMUM abc / MINIMUM xyz”. While one thing goes up, another comes down. Visually this created a distinctly recognisable typographic world for the brand.

This brand mechanic also comes alive through motion graphics, as in this looping brand animation.

And finally for promotional merchandise the ‘organisational fitness’ idea translates nicely into personal fitness giveaways – again reinforcing the principle behind the brand. Overall the identity was hugely differentiating in the market and very cost-effective to roll out and keep fresh.