Arts for Health Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Identity

Arts for Health Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (AFHC) is one of the UK’s leading arts and health organisations. It runs a diverse programme of projects designed to improve health and well-being through the use of creativity. These range from improving the places where people receive health care, to running music and movement sessions aimed at improving the quality of life for the elderly in care homes.

When AFHC asked us to design their printed annual report and new biannual journal in summer 2008, we found that despite the success of their projects, the idea of ‘arts and health’ was poorly understood. Core to our response was the development of very simple typographic covers for the publications, each setting-out their theme with a bold, plain-speaking statement: ‘Reclaiming the arts for everyone’ (the journal) and ‘Improving health and well-being through creativity’ (the annual report). Similar statements were then used for the article headings inside. You can read more about this project in our Print section.

AFHC received very positive feedback for both printed publications and subsequently asked us to review their brand identity. We felt key to the success of the publications, was they built a very clear picture of the organisation’s work – important for their audience of busy health and social care professionals. In particular, we believed the uniformity of the covers for the annual report and journal gave the publications a strong and united voice which was helpful in presenting such a mix of projects. It therefore became a logical solution to extend this uniformity – quite literally – by adopting the typographic design of the covers for the identity.

We liked the idea of partnering the name of the organisation with a statement of purpose, as we had for the publication covers, to create a ‘two part’ logotype (although there would be times when the name would be used on its own). To reflect the variety of work that AFHC does, we felt that different statements should be used for different applications. The flexibility of this means that each application, whether it’s the latest journal or annual report, gets a specific statement as part of the identity.

To further the identity’s flexibility and reflect AFHC’s creative aspect, we introduced a potentially unlimited palette of colour-pairs for the logotype. Each colour-pair consists of a ‘foundation’ colour for the organisation’s name, and an ‘accent’ colour to highlight the statement. With an indefinite palette to draw from, we were able to print each stationery item in a range of colour-pairs (allowing the AFHC team to choose their preferred combination). Each edition of the journal and annual report is also identified by its own colour-pair.

The organisation’s previous logotype (their acronym encased in three squares and a circle) was retained as a ‘sign-off’, which the client felt was important in retaining familiarity for their audience (although this may be phased out over time).

With design guidelines established for both the identity and marketing communication, we have been able to provide AFHC with a pragmatic toolkit that provides uniformity across all communications to raise their prominence with the countenance of a coherent and professional organisation.

Font

Akkurat by Lineto Type Foundry

Printer

St Austell Printing Company Limited

Park Lane Press

Paper

Revive 100 Uncoated, 100% post-consumer recovered material (FSC certification), from Robert Horne Group

Related projects

Arts for Health printed material

No one should be homeless at Christmas publication