Creating a brand with action at its heart for Christian Aid

In 2017 it was clear that people had lost track of what Christian Aid stood for. They no longer understood what the charity did, where supporter money went, or what the charity was trying to achieve. In short, they had forgotten the Christian Aid story.

In a world increasingly beset by divisive politics, self-gain and crippling poverty, we helped Christian Aid develop a brand that is clear in its intention of asking us all to take action, and to ‘stand together for dignity, equality and justice’, giving people a reason to once again care about and connect with Christian Aid.

A manifesto brought together the brand’s purpose and positioning with the new ‘life visionary’ personality. This was used as a platform to create the brand’s new visual expression.

Before work began on the visual expression of the brand, a wide-ranging visual audit and brand ‘health check’ was undertaken covering every aspect of how the brand appears and functions across all channels and touchpoints. Recommendations were made on what to keep, ditch, evolve or create.

The initial design process was approached in an intensive format, with a small team of designers led by myself, established in an immersive environment. In-house designers from Christian Aid joined our team at regular intervals, along with other key stakeholders to ensure buy-in and ownership.

Four visual territories that built upon the brand purpose were created, and one was chosen to take forward into development. The visual expression takes the ‘we can, we will’ attitude in the brand personality and amplifies it to create a visual expression with action at its heart. 

The brand uses an ‘active grid’ to empower people to create energetic, dynamic and compelling communications that have a hand-made feel.

A softer, characterful and more accessible font ‘Mokoko’ was selected as the new primary font. The open source font ‘Open Sans’ was also selected as a secondary font to complement Mokoko, and also to support a more accessible and digitally-friendly brand.

The logo was refreshed and refined. It introduces the new font and is placed on the left of any composition, pointing into the content and positioning Christian Aid as an active instigator.

In a world increasingly beset by divisive politics, self-gain and crippling poverty, Christian Aid now has a brand that is clear in its intention of asking us all to ‘stand together for dignity, equality and justice’.