Tyler Grange
Nurturing the environment, brewing beer and fostering talent are all things environmental architects Tyler Grange have done for the past 10 years. At the forefront of their sector, they needed a brand and website which better reflected this. They asked us to dig into what Tyler Grange is at its core and create an identity that showcased their innovation.
Through brand workshops, we discovered that Tyler Grange is best described as a playful brand supported by expert collaboration, which is at the heart of their practice. We created a logo mark around the concept of reshaping your world. Positive, nurturing and a catalyst for growth – the mark is inspired by flora, fauna and human construction. We made sure this fed through the illustration, web and typography of the brand.
Tyler Grange will launch their brand in tandem with their 10 year anniversary and will roll it out across website, social and all external comms. It will take them into 2021 with a brand that feels authentic to their values, their work and their clients.
Testimonial
The Mental Health Foundation is a UK charity whose mission is to help people to thrive through understanding, protecting, and sustaining their mental health. This year they asked us to help create a look and feel for their annual Mental Health Awareness Week. As part of the official government response to COVID-19, the theme for the week was kindness. We helped establish a brand which fed through animation, fundraising packs, reports and social media content.
We created a brand that dealt with serious issues but felt positive and left the UK feeling optimistic. The style championed the Mental Health Foundation green along with a character-led illustration style. The combination of geometric shapes and abstract textures communicated subtly how mental health can make you feel off-balance and muddled but the friendly characters kept the topic of mental health approachable and reassuring.
As part of the suite of materials for this campaign we created an animated film to help them spread the message and talk about the importance of Kindness. We wanted the script to be fun and engaging, to get across the seriousness of the message, but in an accessible and friendly way. We developed the script into a poem, and the comedian Mark Watson, an ambassador for the charity, recorded the voice-over for the film. The quirky, illustrative style comes alive in animation, and bespoke sound design adds the finishing touch.
The animation and digital materials are currently part of the UK government’s official response to COVID-19 and has encouraged people to fundraise for the Mental Health Foundation during May, staying active during the current pandemic.
“We were really impressed by the creativity Flow brought to the mix and they felt like a great fit for this important campaign for us. We’ve loved collaborating with the team and the campaign materials they’ve produced are amazing.”
Join the music revolution! Lickd is a cutting-edge online service that provides licensed music for digital creators to use in their content, featuring songs from artists such as Noel Gallagher and Sam Fender. Lickd asked us to take their brand and add our motion magic. We created an in-depth motion brand guidelines that featured ident, lower thirds, paid social advertising and thumbnail design.
We built on the existing brand adding new gradients, slick graphic sound waves and bold typography to create professional and cohesive motion guidelines. The motion exudes a contemporary cool which appeals to its audience; the new generation of creators.
The guidelines have been rolled out for all social and video content and the Lickd team are able to keep their brand consistent whilst moving. Their content is now dynamic and polished, establishing them as a trusted provider of legally licensed music.
The University of Liverpool approached us to develop a brand identity for their MBA course. The brand needed to reflect the ambitious nature of the university and the fact that its students are considered as future leaders. Alongside the main MBA brand we were asked to produce a brand identity for the Catalyst Programme, the course’s careers arm which offers specialist links to industry and exciting speakers.
We developed a sophisticated brand system that hinted at the course’s heritage whilst positioning it as forward-thinking. Using a muted colour palette and lightweight stroke crest brand mark, we developed a series of icons to represent careers, immersion, alumni and guest speakers – the four pillars of the course. A contemporary liverbird became the main brand mark of the MBA course, again tying it to Liverpool’s heritage. The brand was then rolled out across printed material, a brochure and branded merchandise for students enrolment.
The new brand and collateral launched in September 2019, to welcome the new students enrolling onto the course.
Flow are amazing. Their work is incredibly contemporary and the team are really talented. Everything was done very efficiently and we have had so many compliments on our new branding.
You Are Not Alone (YANA) Festival is a Manchester-based music festival in aid of mental health charity, Manchester Mind. The festival needed a positive, playful identity that could be rolled out across all communications, from ticket sales build-up to the event itself.
We developed a friendly illustrative style that reinforced connection and inclusivity; the main motif of the festival is two elongated arms coming together in harmony. We used mismatched typography of different weights and sizes to complement this, giving the brand a playful feel. Social cards were released in the run up to the festival to announce artist line-ups and new venues!
YANA debuted on 30th March 2019 in Northern Quarter venues The Whiskey Jar, Jimmy’s and Night & Day. It was a sellout festival and the sun even shone in Manchester for the occasion! Plans are underway already for YANA 2020, so watch this space…
We want to give a huge big ups to Flow. Can’t recommend them enough. Standout work, the nicest and easiest staff to deal with, literally 10/10. Thanks for everything.
With the new Flow website ready to launch, we wanted to share the best of our design and print expertise through our very own mailer campaign! The challenge was to give people a taste of the work we do here in the studio, introduce the team, and get potential clients excited about working with us.
The mailer combined different hand-crafted pieces: a luxurious brochure of our work, a meet-the-team fold-out (complete with bespoke illustrations), business cards, and a personal thank-you note written in gold ink. Each bundle was wrapped with a Flow-stamped belly band, and sealed in premium gold and black envelopes!
The One Powerhouse Consortium is an organisation that aims to create spatial plans for the ‘mega regions’ of England, and integrate them with existing plans for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They needed an identity to put them on a platform, and make their audience sit up and listen to what they have to say.
The brand feels clean, contemporary and ready to be taken seriously. A ‘grown-up’ palette of dark blues and white complements a modern accent of coral. We developed a dot matrix mechanism to reinforce the idea of connection and strength across the regions, which will later be developed into a suite of icons and illustrations.
We delivered a contemporary and intuitive brand, website and print material which successfully launched in July. With backers including Gordan Brown and John Major, the One Powerhouse scheme sets to develop its plans for Britain.
Creative Industries Clusters Programme is a collaboration of nine regional clusters (universities, tech companies and creatives across the UK) all working to drive innovation and skills. The AHRC approached us to develop a brand and integrated campaign for the launch of this £80 million government investment into R&D.
The dynamic ‘X’ identity unifies the programme, whilst giving each Cluster the flexibility to be unique in its own right. The programme’s aims were brought to life in a playful animation, focusing on themes of imagination and creative possibility. All Clusters were then showcased on a website featuring exciting updates about each of the innovative projects currently in development.
The programme and its identity was officially launched at the Beyond Conference in November 2018, and the Clusters will be busy developing their R&D projects over the next five years. Each Cluster is working on its own range of communications, using the brand guidelines we crafted at their core.
Each year, Beyond brings together creatives, academics, and researchers. The Barbican Centre in London hosted the 2018 event, and featured an amazing array of talks, panels, and presentations. Dynamic and forward-thinking, Beyond asked us to deliver branding, website, and social media content to match.
We devised a crisp black-and-white logo for the event. The “Be” of “Beyond” transforms into a device that can be paired with event keywords, like creative, innovative, dynamic, and brave. We added bright red, purple, and teal accent colours to the palette, emphasising Beyond’s mission to drive the creative industries in fresh directions.
As well as putting together the core brand guidelines, we applied them to materials including pre-event social cards, printed programmes, a digital presentation, and on-screen graphics for use during sessions. To cap it all, we made some animated stings and motion graphics to bring the Beyond brand to life!
Manchester Digital wanted something extra-special to mark the 20th anniversary of the Big Chip Awards. Each year, the event recognises the best northern digital and tech companies. They asked us to bring the 2018 edition to life with an opening animation, event branding, printed programmes, and award countdown videos.
Two themes stood out: digital progress, and the mighty North. So we wrote a script combining computer games and bad northern puns! A fearless female lead appears in all animated scenes, morphing and adapting for each genre. And with a sparkling “special edition” palette of purple and gold throughout, the printed programme took the form of a 90s game cartridge, complete with 8-bit font and “Game Over” message.
Our opening animation definitely went off with a bang. It attracted spontaneous applause and cheers from the crowd, building excitement and getting the night off to exactly the start that Manchester Digital wanted.
We couldn’t have been happier with the work Flow Creative have produced. The brochure this year has been the best one yet and we were blown away by the animation.
