Beyond Profit
| BRANDING | LOGO REFRESH | GUIDELINES | TEMPLATES |
“I worked with Claire on a brand refresh for my business. She is fantastic to work with and really understood what I was trying to achieve and my audience.”
Client
Emma Wilder runs Beyond Profit, offering accountancy and governance support to charities. Based in Bolton, the team provide support to newly formed, small- and medium-sized charities to help them navigate the charity governance and finance landscape, become more efficient and grow their reach.
Beyond Profit have been involved in the charity sector since 2003 and have depth of experience in the serious business of accountancy and governance. However, they are ‘not your typical accountants’, displaying a passion for increasing the impact of the charities they work with and doing so in an approachable manner. This balance is one they are keen to communicate through their website and other marketing.
Emma was looking to refresh the branding for her business and came to me through a recommendation.
Brief
Emma had an existing website in place and was happy with the current business logo which her son had developed. She wanted to build a more coherent visual identity around this element to achieve a more consistent and professional look. She was keen to keep the calm green and blue colours as she felt they spoke to the way she brings calm to her clients by handling the tricky elements of their accountancy and governance activities.
Emma wanted a brand package that would include templates and a guidelines document to ensure consistency going forward across any new materials Beyond Profit create including presentations and social media visuals.
Creative
We began the rebrand process with a discovery call, looking closely at the current branding and getting to the heart of Emma’s business. Beyond Profit was built on strong values of giving back and communicating a sense of helping charities through her work is important to Emma. The serious nature of the work needed to be balanced against an authenticity to the design to capture the way the business is run.
I went away and worked on some mood boards, presenting these to Emma online. There was a clear preferred winner in the direction featuring visuals using abstract close-up nature shots with a deliberately over-lit effect. The idea came from the small but difficult tasks that Beyond Profit help with, lighting the way and bringing clarity to the charities they’re supporting.
The logo, which Emma wanted to keep, was a tree. I tweaked the image to better balance the graphic and neaten up the typography, while retaining the essence of the original image. I assembled a colour palette that kept the existing green and blue and combined them with some summery yellow and pink hues alongside a more serious deep blue for contrast. The imagery also used filters to add noise to the visuals, again playing on the granular nature of the functions Beyond Profit perform for their clients. The overall effect was one of a calm but serious tone with some personality behind it.
Emma went away with a brand package including all the usual logos, icons and background graphics including gradients and abstract photos for use on the website. I also created a mock-up of a new homepage so that the website developer could apply the branding. This work included a large suite of icons for the web pages, including services and values.
I provided templates in Canva for the social media graphics, Word templates for proposals and letterheads and a PowerPoint presentation template. I also created designs for a banner stand and business cards, so Emma had everything she needed to launch her refreshed brand.
Impact
The branding was completed on time and on budget and Emma was very pleased with the results. The team at Beyond Profit have been using the templates and doing a great job keeping their social media content on brand.
Emma was so happy that she has since recommended me to others within her charity network.
“All the team think it’s fab. I am so pleased with the outcome that I have recommended her to one of my clients for a new brand logo. I couldn’t recommend her more.”
