A new communications system for a new decade
Institute of Physics
Stuart and his design team created a new communications system that was clearly ‘IOP’, but addressed the needs of a wide range of different audiences.
The Issues and Challenge
With 52,000 members in the UK and Ireland, the IOP’s remit is to inspire people to develop their knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of physics. They work with a range of partners to support and develop the teaching of physics in schools. They encourage innovation, growth and productivity in business, and they provide advice to governments across the UK and in Ireland. Their members are varied, coming from industry, academia, the classroom, technicians, apprentices and students.
With a new CEO and Head of Communications and Marketing – and moving into a stylish new building in one of the most impressive growth areas of London, Kings Cross – they needed to update their image. Their collateral had no consistency and needed a radical overhaul, and they needed to develop a new approach to how they communicated with their very wide audience base. They turned to Stuart and his design team to give them what they needed.
What we did
The Institute has a strong corporate identity, featuring red in a very bold and confident way. However, in order to be able to address its wide range of audiences, it needed a new system that, whilst using the identity as its corporate ‘umbrella’, was able to speak to different audiences in ways that each would find relevant and appealing. Audience segmentation was at the core of this story.
A wide range of communication styles was developed to address the membership, groups and education audiences. Sub-groups within these had their own special treatment.
Stuart used different design styles to give each of these audiences a distinctive look and feel that people would instantly recognise and feel comfortable with. He used real-life and reportage photography, quotes, a special ‘chalkboard’ word style, cut-out images, illustration and specially designed graphics. In one particular case, for 7-11 year olds, he created a special, very distinctive banner style. These were all documented in a new set of Identity & Communication Guidelines in September 2019.
What we achieved
The design team created a family of design ‘personalities’ but all sitting underneath the corporate umbrella that links them all together, always ensuring people know that they are being communicated to by the Institute of Physics.
The result is a much more engaging set of communication materials, much fresher and lighter in feel than what they had previously.
