Creative round-up February 2024

February may have been a short and gloomy month but it certainly hasn’t been short on bright design and branding news! Here is a selection from the last few weeks that’s caught the eyes of the Ingenious team…

London Overground new route names

London Overground is used by over half a million people daily but has previously had no specific names for its routes. Until now that is. Transport for London (TfL) has just revealed six new route names to be implemented by the end of the year, all of which are dedicated to historic stories and underrepresented communities.

Although the overall Overground network will retain its orange-accented branding, a secondary colour system has been introduced so each route has its own shade. The new names and colours are as follows: Mildmay – blue, Liberty – black, Lioness – gold, Suffragette – green, Weaver – pink and Windrush – red. Updated maps and signage will soon appear across the TfL network, together with posters highlighting information about each route.

The names align closely with the routes. For example, Windrush runs through parts of London that have strong ties to Caribbean communities and Suffragette commemorates Annie Huggett who campaigned for the women’s rights movement while a resident of Barking at the end of this route. The Lioness line cuts through Wembley where England women’s football team won the 2022 Women’s Euros and Weaver celebrates east and north London’s long-standing affiliation with the textile trade. Mildmay NHS hospital was the first dedicated to treating HIV and AIDS patients and Liberty highlights the freedom that defines London generally.

The new names were devised after a wide consultation process and in partnership with creative studio, DNCO which specialises in creating brands for UK destinations.

Barnabus charity rebrand

An uplifting new identity has just been launched for Manchester homeless charity Barnabus. Although it has existed for 30 years, the charity has undergone a recent change in approach involving deeper levels of support to fewer people to help them rebuild their lives in the long term and the charity wanted the new branding to reflect this shift.

Created by local agency, Havas Lynx, the new designs are inspired by Manchester’s local geography. Animated graphics, an adaptable logotype and angular type treatments reflect the city’s streets and buildings, giving the sense of turning a corner or opening a door. The colour palette is bright yet calming and the tone of voice optimistic. Manchester has the third highest homelessness rate in the UK and Barnabus provides a crucial lifeline for vulnerable people. Since the new brand was introduced, there has been a significant uptick in social media engagement.

DBS Bank’s Chinese New Year fragrance

Asia’s leading bank, DBS commissioned Singapore-based creative agency, The Secret Little Agency, to work on a perfume and accompanying film to recreate the smell of money! The result is Huat Eau de Perfume and is currently being given away at the bank’s branches.

Every Chinese New Year, people withdraw minted banknotes at ATMs to place in red gifting envelopes, a long-standing Chinese tradition. DBS wanted to encourage customers to digitally gift the red packets rather than using physical ones but realised the smell of new notes was a widely loved feature of the tradition. They therefore started working with fragrance designers to recreate the smell of money!

The Secret Little Agency wants the campaign to expand the way Chinese New Year festivities are represented – ‘Almost all campaigns and creative efforts during the new year are audio-visual in nature…Huat Eau de Parfume represents the first time a brand has tried to capture a scent as an expression of Chinese New Year’.

The Sunday Light

The new sunshine-like Sunday Light is an alternative to SAD lamps. In a bid to create some mood-boosting daylight during the winter, designers Nat Martin and Sean Hammett have invented an overhead light that recreates the feeling of a sunny day. It consists of a small but powerful LED suspended under a reflective panel which disperses the light across a room. It works in a similar way to SAD lamps – the superbright lights designed to fight Seasonal Affective Disorder – by providing sun-like light to improve mood, energy and alertness, but is more pleasant to sit under as the two designers have employed some clever creative engineering solutions to ensure natural looking diffused light without harshness.

Book: The Package Holiday 1968-1985

And to keep the bright mood going, you may also be interested in the work of photographer Trevor Clark who captured the joyful heyday of the British package holiday. His photos have been collected in a book compiled by his son, Jake Clark and published by Hoxton Mini Press.

Clark moved from London to Mallorca in 1968 to set up a commercial studio and was therefore perfectly placed to document the new hotels popping up as package holidays quickly grew in popularity. His images appeared in numerous brochures including those of Thomas Cook and Skytours and are a celebration of sunshine and nostalgia. People with tanned bodies and cocktails in hand, on sun loungers and enjoying hotel entertainment are shot with a Hasselblad medium format camera on Ektachrome film.