Radio Newark

We were thrilled and honoured to be asked to create the brand new look for our very own local radio station.

The new identity is the perfect combination of old and new, with the introduction of the digital element through the new signal-inspired 'N' icon, but also including a little nod to the past with the stylised FM dial. Carrying through part of the original identity with the use of the orange, but giving the colour palette a bit of a refresh with the introduction of the bright gradient and the strong contrasting blue.

Dixon & Townsend

We were contacted by Newark-based Dixon & Townsend, who wanted a new logo for their Mechanical Services company, that was established and well-known in the industry, but relatively unknown outside of that (originally) with no real public facing identity or online presence.

The logo itself is seemingly simple in appearance, yet through the subtle use of negative space it cleverly combines both of the initial letters into one effective monogram. Not only that, the real trick was creating a unique letter form that also resembled pipes, which are they key component for this local business specialising in plumbing and pipework for commercial and industrial projects across the UK.

Purple Path

Following on from our previous work with Future Prospects Group, we were asked to help them rebrand their online and onsite training division.

This project included rebuilding the brand from the ground up, starting with developing a new name before we began building their new identity.

Find Me The Leads

We first met Leisa at the Newark Business Club, which lead to her coming in to see us and having a chat about her vision for the future of Find Me The Leads and how the logo and branding at the time had served its purpose but no longer reflected the business she envisioned it could be. 

Creative Process

During our initial chat with Leisa we discussed what it was she did and (more importantly) didn't like about her existing branding. Bright and bold colours were a must, not only a personal preference but Leisa was keen to reflect her own personality through the branding, which we know is such a great way for businesses and individuals to better connect with their clients/customers etc.

The previous Find Me The Leads logo was focused on the lead generation and communication themes through a small group of brightly coloured icons. We discussed how giving more of a nod to the specialist area of lead generation for the food and drinks industry might better communicate what Find Me The Leads was all about. Although, it needed to generic enough not to align the business to a particular area and risk alienating potential clients.

Three initial concepts were presented but only one was taken through to be developed. We think we managed to capture the nature of the business quite well with the creation of a logomark that clearly represents the food and drinks industry with the addition of the concentric lines to depict the notion of searching, finding and communicating.

Some time was used to source a font-pairing that could effectively portray the personal and professional nature of Leisa's business. The result of this was to combine two font styles that are both very individual but work perfectly together. One using a more “handwritten” style to reflect the personal side of the business, paired with the bolder condensed typeface that definitely means more business but has softer edges to retain the friendly, approachability nature that Leisa has.

All these things combined with the development of a bright and bold colour palette meant that the new logo and brand style met Leisa's brief perfectly.

Brand Development

Once the logo and branding project was completed, Leisa asked us to help her create a digital flyer for a local event she was hosting. This gave us the perfect opportunity to put the new brand style into practice and create something bright, bold, personal and professional.

To help the viewer more easily understand the subject matter we believed it required a few more food and drink related visuals, so we created a small series of illustrations, as shown above.

This helped to cement the brand style and since providing Leisa with the 'Find Me The Leads Brand Stylesheet' she's able to create all manner of content in a clear and consistent way, as all successful brands do.

A few kind words

“I approached Brand Newark to work with me on a new logo and brand refresh. My business had outgrown its original logo and I wanted something more aligned to the sector in which my business operates (food and drink). I also wanted a catchy tagline summarising what I do but without giving too much away.

“I met briefly with Paul and Andrew to share what I did and didn't like in terms of colours, fonts etc and they set to work.”

“I am so happy with the result, a subtle nod to the food and drink sector, bold bright colours which reflect my personality and approach to business, clean and crisp lines and a tagline which I can use when introducing my business to an audience.”

“Brand Newark are a pleasure to work with, highly recommend.”

Leisa Pickles
Chief Go Getter — Find Me The Leads

BeanBlock

Working with ambitious local businesswomen, Aliki Allen and Cate Martin, to help them realise their shared vision of opening a community focused café in Newark by creating the logo, brand style and promotional materials for BeanBlock.

Creative Process

Beginning this project with a very strong sense of what they wanted to achieve, made translating Cate and Aliki’s vision into reality an absolute pleasure. With the colour scheme already chosen, they both envisaged a wordmark style logo but we recommended combining that with a unique icon of some kind that could be used to more easily identify them on social media. Taking all these things into consideration, it remained for us to develop a few initial concepts.

Of the three concepts presented, there was an immediate front-runner in Concept 1. It delivered on the brief perfectly with the uniquely identifying “block icon” being an integral part of the simple and understated wordmark, but there was a mutual feeling that Concept 3 also had potential and should therefore be explored further.

Developing Concept 3 further created a nice little logo that visually described the café name perfectly, it was a coffee bean within a block that resembled the initial letter B. What could be more perfect than than that? Yet, it didn’t have the simplicity and strength of Concept 1.

After some time to consider the options and further discussions between Cate, Aliki and ourselves, it was concluded that they wanted to go with their initial instincts and chose Concept 1 as their preferred logo.

Brand Development

Following the completion of the logo design part of the project, we were asked to create a branded banner to display in the cafe window while the space was being developed. This included all the newly created brand elements, including the BeanBlock wordmark, the logomark (block icon) and the distinctive brand colours. It also incorporated some lovely images created by students at Newark College, featuring Aliki and Cate's children as the happy and playful little customers, which made a for a wonderful personal touch.

Once the café was open, we were asked to design some customer loyalty cards, for which we created a unique design for both the children and the grown-ups version.

We have also created a series of social media assets to help promote their “Pay It Forward” campaign, which supports local families by providing free meals kindly donated by café customers and local businesses.

Since our very first chat at the Newark Business Club, we knew that Cate and Aliki would absolutely make this happen. We have been more than happy to support them in whichever way we could, and will continue to do so knowing that BeanBlock is such a wonderful community project doing great things for the families of Newark… as well as providing us with yummy cakes and coffee!.

Newark Business Club

We were more than happy to be involved with the rebranding of the Newark Business Club. As active members we felt like we were in an ideal position to look at the club from a members point of view as well as looking at it objectively from a branding perspective.

This insight lead us to create something that was a visual representation of the many different members of our local business community, coming together as one.

A few kind words

“Paul and the team at Brand Newark were one of three companies who submitted their early designs for our rebrand in 2019. It was clear that Paul got the brief and used his knowledge of the networking group to identify a range of icons which would represent the club well in print and digitally. The final design really encapsulated what we hoped to convey in the logo and branding; a place for everyone where different skillsets come together to make up a thriving town and business community.”

“The fresh logo has received some high praise from members and visiting guests over the years and it has retained it's freshness. Paul was a pleasure to work with on this rebranding activity and I would be happy to recommend him and the team to anyone else looking for a rebrand.”

Kerri McGarrigle
Chairman — Newark Business Club

Brand Development

Obviously we were delighted that our design was chosen by the committee, and even more so after we were asked to develop the logo and brand style to create a series of banners that can be used during physical meetings, whenever it's safe for that to happen again. 

We look forward to seeing you all in person once that time arrives.

FutureCloud

Creation of logo and business cards for local accountancy duo Francesca and Charlotte. Working with friends can sometimes have the potential to cause awkwardness if things don’t quite go to plan, but when they have such a clear vision and you understand entirely what they want to achieve, it makes projects such as these an absolute dream.

Creative Process

The concept behind the cloud icon was to create a stylistic and original way to incorporate the initial letters of both the business name and the name of the two partners (which was no coincidence) within a simple graphical cloud device. This combined with the distinctive colour palette creates a clear and personal brand style.

From our initial discussions, Francesca and Charlotte were very keen on using colour as key brand identifier, with each one choosing their preferred colour — Green (Fran) and Purple (Charlotte) — with the intention of using those colours to identify each of them individually on business cards etc, and then with the colours combined on the Future Cloud logo and other brand elements to reinforce the concept of partnership.

Coddington School

Following one of those chance conversations in a Newark pub, we discovered that the school our Creative Director’s daughter attends was looking for a local agency to help them redesign their logo. The brief was to find a logo solution that was more suited to a Primary School, bright and colourful and matching the ‘Rainbow Values’ of this Church of England school, as well as depicting their new school motto… ‘Shining the Light of Learning’.

The only other consideration was that the school wanted to involve their students in the design process.

Creative Process

So, to kick things off, a competition was launched where students of all ages were invited to submit the designs they would like as the new school logo. A number of the most promising entries were then shortlisted and we sat down with the Headteacher and the School Council to pick the winner. Our job was then to adapt the winning design, by Amelia Hopkinson of 6CW, into a fully considered and professionally designed school logo that would work across all print and digital applications.

The key elements of the new logo are the ‘Rainbow Colours’ which match the school’s values, the Book to indicate learning and the Cross to convey the school’s religious heritage.

So well done to Amelia for her design inspiration and to the school council for giving us a better brief than some we’ve had from our grown-up clients.

Future Prospects Group

The objective of the brief was to align the branding of the new training services — Future Learning — with the existing Future Prospects branding and for these two divisions to fall under the new ‘Future Prospects Group’ umbrella brand.

With an aim to retain the equity of the existing branding, we redeveloped the Future Prospects logo and created new brand identities for Future Learning and the Future Prospects Group.

Brand Development

The new branding has already been used on their new website and all the promotional material for the new business proposition. We also received a very public thank you from the client as they introduced their new branding at the Newark Business Club and we look forward to working with them on future projects.

Brand Overview

On completion of the design element of this project we created all the final assets, including all three logos in a number of formats suitable for both print and digital, along with this brand overview to ensure that whoever uses the new logos to create artwork in the future can maintain the same level of brand consistency.