The beloved face of marketing in Devon and Bristol, Building Brands, needed a facelift to attract sponsorship
Plymouth can feel a long way out of the way. For ambitious marketers in the Southwest, high-quality inspiration often requires a long journey up north (i.e. London…), leaving brilliant local talent feeling isolated and/or out of pocket.
Enter Building Brands. Gathering the brightest regional minds. Sharing expertise. Empowering the community. Causing a stir. Igniting enthusiasm. Everything they do has a heartfelt intention – to make people feel included and help them succeed. But their visual identity was far from inspiring. They needed a bold new look to match the momentum they’d already created.
What Upshot did
Strategic thinking
Building Brands conferences in Plymouth, Exeter and Bristol are known as the place to be for anyone involved in any level of marketing in the Southwest. From freelancers to founders and interns to industry leaders, the opportunity to connect with like-minded collaborators, share experience, and grow their business has been at the heart of it. But there’s also a deeply personal side, and a particular vibe that needed drawing out.
We challenged the four directors (a gaggle of brilliant minds with wildly different personalities!) to dig deep into what Building Brands was setting out to achieve, why it was loved, and what underpins their priorities. And together with Olivia Dunn we helped create a brand articulation based around three core pillars.
Seriously Playful. Relentlessly Supportive. Practically Inspiring.
With these clearly defined, we had covered some of the more rebellious, visionary, inclusive and commercial aspects of the brand identity – no mean feat.
Visual identity
The initials BB gave us lots of possible solutions, and we landed on a playful emblem that could be tilted at an angle to become a set of quote marks. We brought the idea of Seriously Playful through from the brand articulation stage by using a highly saturated palette of bold colours.
Giving Southwest marketers a homegrown, travel-light event of this standard is key. Its epicentre is right at the heart of Devon, and everything spreads outwards from here, and we visualised this using a radiating ‘signal’ graphic that provides a distinctive visual asset.
Typography needed to represent a wide and diverse range of services, people and approaches. We paired a larger-than life variable typeface named Obviously with a casual script called Shelby – creating a system that could give the team a vast number of opportunities and hierarchies.
The things that Upshot did, the things that they got us thinking about and doing, and the certainty that the whole branding project has given us is game changing. I honestly couldn't have asked to work with better people!
Reception
At the first conference of the year, all eyes were on the brand launch video, a collaboration between Upshot, Olivia Dunn, and The Tannery Creative. The change was significant, and the reception was overwhelmingly positive – no mean feat with an audience of creatives and experts! Dave and the team have the ammunition to go out and drum up support and sponsorship to help achieve the huge goals they've set – so watch out, Building Brands is only going to get better and better!
Event photography ©Building Brands
Animation by Callum Taylor | The Tannery Creative |
Strategic writing support from Olivia Dunn | Profound |
