Delightful Ethical Digital

Branding and Visual Identity

Is your brand working as hard as it could do? From audience research and stakeholder workshops to brand guidelines and a new logo, we can help.

Our approach to branding

Think of branding as how people talk about your organisation when you’re not in the room. How do you feel your organisation is coming across? 

Is everyone speaking with the same tone of voice? And does this match your strategic vision? Does your logo look great on every channel, or is there confusion within senior management about why investing in branding matters?

With our collaborative approach, we can help your purpose-led brand, charity or social enterprise become professional, engaging and trusted by your audiences. Our flexible process can involve the conceptual work of tying a communications strategy to your visual identity, as well as the practical needs such as ensuring your colours are digitally accessible. 

Our outputs vary according to the client and the brief, but we always avoid jargon and ‘design speak’. While we will talk you through mood boards, we’ll never talk about ‘love marks’ or ‘reaching out going forward’!

Pages from the Human Dignity Trust brand guidelines

We carried out a complete brand refresh for the Human Dignity Trust

Our typical branding process includes the following steps:

Research

We’ll really get to know your organisation, understanding your history, personality, values, tone, aspirations and more. We’ll combine this with a design analysis of your competitors and peers so we know the best – and worst – of your sector. 

Our work for World Physiotherapy involved delving into the organisation’s design and identity to truly understand its heritage. 

Brief

Together, we’ll interrogate the brief, find directions to explore or avoid and ensure everyone’s on the same page about scope, deliverables and process. 

How the World Physiotherapy brand is applied to a tote bag

"Feedback about the brand has been really positive – people love the vibrancy and freshness.” – Freya Rodger, Head of Marketing and Communications, World Physiotherapy

Strategy

The branding process can be like taking someone shopping for new clothes. If the organisation has traditionally shopped at Liberty but is thinking TK Maxx might be more in line with where they are now, then that’s where we need to help bring people with us. 

Our strategy workshops involve bringing key stakeholders together, from board members to volunteers, to define vision, audiences and channels – and then ensuring they’re prioritised. 

Mood boards

We’ll create mood boards to explore initial design directions and present them to you for feedback. This is casting our net wide to find the edges of what’s possible and involves graphic styles, illustration, photography, typography and colour, for starters. 

Our revitalised brand for FORWARD uses pattern as a key part of their identity, hinting at African heritage without patronising it. 

Forward website design showcased on a laptop and phone device

"We wanted to stand out, show our boldness and be unashamedly African in our look and this is what Fat Beehive have achieved for us. The team were a joy to work with and went above and beyond to give us what we needed.” Naomi Reid, Communications and Events Manager, FORWARD

Explorations

We’ll carry out further experiments and design investigations based on your feedback, towards logos and/or wordmark concepts. Our work with LGBT rights organisation Human Dignity Trust shows just some of the many examples we explored during the process.

Once we’ve agreed one or two final routes, we’ll apply these to assets (letterheads, tote bags, T-shirts etc) so you can visualise your new brand coming to life. We’ll then finesse these based on your feedback. 

This usually includes logos, colours and typography, with potential for other brand needs – iconography, illustration, photography and more.  

Strategic guidelines

Following our earlier workshops, we can also explore what outputs will help guide your organisation. We work with the best consultants in the business to co-create Tone of Voice guidelines, content strategies, communications toolkits or marketing plans – see more on our Digital Strategy page

Assets

Once you’re entirely happy with your new visual identity, we’ll produce all your final assets and in-depth brand guidelines – giving your team a unique visual identity that expresses your organisation’s values and personality.

We’ve really enjoyed working with Fat Beehive to redevelop our branding and to build an elegant and powerful new website. They’ve really helped us to put together a new brand that reflects who we are as an organisation and speaks to our diverse stakeholders.

Alistair Stewart, Senior Advocacy Adviser, Human Dignity Trust

Get in touch

Speak to us about your project, get a quote