AMBS
Creative refresh and collateral design
AMBS
Creative refresh and collateral design
A creative refresh and collateral design exercise that elevates Alliance Manchester Business School’s communications materials to match their global reputation for expertise and excellence.
Background
Alliance Manchester Business School is home to more than 500 academic, teaching and support staff. For over half a century, the research work of AMBS experts has won global recognition thanks to original thinking in a huge variety of fields and specialisms: data science and marketing, employment, globalisation, health and infrastructure, accounting and finance, organisational psychology, with the power to influence policy makers and business leaders in some of the world’s biggest issues.
Challenge
Our client had identified a lack of connection between their brand essence – Original Thinking Applied – and the visual styling applied to their branded comms materials, so they approached us to refresh their creative and develop a clear, memorable, striking and consistent look and feel across the full product and channel portfolio.
Key messages and visuals should transmit the concepts of influence and impact, positive disruption, growth and transformation, being pioneers, a sense of thriving, and AMBS’s driving force – Original Thinking Applied. In our client’s own words: “Original Thinking Applied is at the heart of everything we do. This means that our research positively impacts businesses, policy and third sector organisations. It infuses our teaching so students, delegates and clients can apply it to solve real business challenges.”
The visual treatment should showcase the positive impact of AMBS students, and we needed to create a wide range of project deliverables, including:
- Refreshed creative visual identity
- Marketing collateral – suite of assets and templates for digital and print
- Brand guidelines
Solution
Basing our thinking around the brand essence, our solution for the creative refresh and collateral design delivered a distinctive look and feel that feels highly professional and sophisticated.
We played with the form of the “A” in Alliance and developed a striking graphic of concentric angled lines that create a point of focus and hook into the “Original Thinking Applied” ethos. With its sense of movement and constant progression, the graphic nods at the idea of personal and professional growth, immediately resonating with the target audience.
The graphic becomes the background element, a strong visual feature that runs across the collateral materials.
Colour-wise, the palette is striking in its simplicity: the primary colour tones are charcoal and purple, a luxurious combination that works well with the relaxed feel of the secondary tones.
The refreshed brand design elements adapt well to a wide range of collateral – business cards, brochure, internal and external graphics and signage, merchandise, digital assets.
Web banners and social media assets: the new graphic also adapts well to smaller spaces for the digital environment.