To show our appreciation for our clients' loyalty and support, we created unique art frames featuring illustrations by our talented creative team. Each piece reflects the diverse perspectives and inspirations that drive our team’s creativity. The illustrations are displayed in bold orange block frames, perfect for hanging on a wall or showcasing on a desk.
Old Mutual is one of South Africa’s foremost names in the financial service sector. The group has been using financial services for good for over 178 years.
As the business world and way of working continue to evolve around us, Old Mutual, like most businesses, relies on its talent to achieve its purpose and impact the world around it. Graduate skills form a crucial component of the group’s talent pipeline, which has seen Old Mutual aggressively recruit in the Early Careers space this year.
Along with general recruitment and building brand awareness, Old Mutual set out another imperative of shifting the perception of the brand amongst its Early Careers audience. In a dynamic and evolving category, Old Mutual has been perceived as somewhat of an ‘old man’ of the industry, lacking the innovation and progressiveness of some of their major competitors and thereby detracting from the overall employer brand proposition.
Our approach to the Early Careers talent segment saw us leverage a broader ongoing piece of work underway to shape Old Mutual’s overall employer brand proposition. Designed with our purpose at its core, our refreshed employer brand seeks to convey the impact we hope to have on our country and continent, placing our people at the heart of our narrative as its heroes.
Extrapolating from this base, we then developed a specific Early Careers communication strategy and conceptual campaign that was then rolled out across a diverse range of touchpoints, including exhibition stands, video content and social media.
We launched the #AuthorYourStory campaign on TikTok using influencers to engage the audience in a fun and interactive challenge.
Utilising the power of TikTok trends to effectively capture the attention and engagement of our target audience. By aligning our content with the latest viral challenges, dances, and trends on TikTok, we could tap into the platform’s immense popularity and reach.
We identified ‘popular amongst university students’ TikTok influencers who resonated with the Gen-Z audience and embodied the spirit of #AuthorYourStory.
Users not only had the opportunity to engage with trending content but also stood a chance to win instant Uber ride and Uber Eats vouchers.
An innovative booth was designed, featuring a futuristic element that allows visitors to experience stepping into a portal.
The booth included an infinity mirror constructed on the back wall, with an LED tunnel creating an infinity effect through reflections.
The 55” interactive screen was integrated around this captivating infinite mirror setup.
How it worked
The Marketing Achievement Awards is an annual celebration of marketing as a strategic business discipline. The competition aims to set a benchmark for marketing standards by recognising those marketing initiatives that have made the most valuable contributions to their businesses’ and society.
To kick off the third season of the awards, post-pandemic, it was time for a refreshed positioning and updated identity to elevate and simplify the brand while setting the benchmark for marketing excellence.
Setting out to build marketing’s stature in business, shape the industry, and promote it as an illustrious career choice, the new brand had to be sophisticated, creatively curious, catalytic, and professional.
At the heart of our brand refresh for MAA lies a powerful inspiration, the awards body's brand positioning: "Marketing that means business". It's the foundation upon which we built a visual identity that speaks volumes.
If you look closely at the MAA logo, you'll notice a subtle but significant element – the spotlight. This spotlight is emblematic of the MAA Board's role in casting a radiant light on the remarkable achievements of both clients and their marketing partners. Just as a spotlight illuminates a stage, we spotlight the excellence achieved in the marketing arena.
Our visual language draws from the world of theatre and performance. The imagery of lights, stages, and the triangular beam reflects the impactful and transformative nature of marketing initiatives. Just as a well-placed spotlight can create stunning visual effects, effective marketing can produce resounding impacts on businesses and society.
We wanted to convey that MAA is not just about creativity for the sake of it; it's about creativity that delivers tangible business solutions. The brand communicates that marketing drives real business results, and this duality was at the core of our approach.
The colour palette is bold and bright. Purple represents leadership and creativity, as well as being respectable and original. The purple is complemented with secondary colours, which are a combination of bright and muted hues, creating a technological nuance. Purple is used mainly for the primary brand, with highlights from the secondary colours. The secondary colours can be used predominantly for campaigns or categories.
The icon becomes a central point of the creation of the patterns, that either radiate from the centre or can be stepped and repeated to create various geometric patterns. The pattern’s colours can be adapted to use other combinations of the colour palette.
Imagery themes used for the MAA brand are centred around lights, similar to being at the awards evening, which adds a technology element. There is also no direct focus on people; they are portrayed in an indirect manner through silhouettes and crops.
By recognising the most valuable contributions to businesses and society, MAA underscores the pivotal role of marketing in driving growth and transformation. The Marketing Achievement Awards (MAA) evening is more than just a gala event; it's a celebration of the profound impact and successes of the marketing industry.
All the event collateral followed the theme of ‘Marketing that Means Business’, shining a light on all the nominees and winners. We ran a live social media campaign, highlighting all the winners throughout the night.
The design of the Marketing Achievement Awards trophy was created using the shapes of the brand icon. This structured shape is representative of the methodical and business-focused side of the awards. The terrazzo tile texture, more abstract and artistic in nature, represents creativity, fully combining the analytical and creative dynamics of the MAA.
The brand’s origin in light is also represented in the prism shape of the trophy, making these objects refractors of light in a figurative sense, highlighting the marketing excellence of brands and individuals.
Roche Diagnostics plays a leading role in many areas of cardiovascular disease by providing total IVD solutions across the cardiovascular continuum.
The cardiac branding campaign emphasized the importance of the diagnostics insulation in cardiac area and the impact on disease management. The cardiac branding campaign named Sharing hope is focused on strengthening Roche Diagnostics’ leadership in heart failure and generating awareness of NT-proBNP. This new marketing initiative highlights the emotional journey that patients and physicians face in heart failure, and the contribution of NT-proBNP along this disease journey.
We developed the cardiac explanatory film to tell the story of the Paul, the patient, and the management of his chronic heart failure. We developed the script based on the campaign narrative and created a friendly, approachable and relatable illustration style and animation to fit with the campaign messaging, to share hope. The story of Paul helps patients see that they can live a full life with better patient management of chronic heart failure through regular visits to a cardiologist and the use of cobas® h 232 to monitor NT-proBNP
Tswalu is a privately owned game reserve in the heart of the Kalahari, founded by the Oppenheimer family. The ecotourism destination serves as the epicentre of a conservation project to return the Kalahari to its former state. Tswalu consists of three unique business areas, a luxury eco-resort, an artist’s residency, and a research facility geared towards understanding and conserving key ecosystems of the region. The funds derived from the resort funnel directly into the study and preservation of the environment and its inhabitants. The artist’s residency, in turn, provides artists of varying disciplines the opportunity to study and capture the fauna and flora of the region, culminating in an art exhibition to raise funds for the Tswalu Foundation.
Tswalu decided to turn a new leaf and reposition the brand to capture the various areas of the business and promote the understanding, empowerment, and artistic interpretation of the Kalahari ecosystem and the wider communities.
CSS Design Awards 2019: Innovation Design Award (Tswalu website)
CSS Design Awards 2019: Special Kudos Award (Tswalu website)
CSS Design Awards 2019: UI Design Award (Tswalu website)
CSS Design Awards 2019: UX Design Award (Tswalu website)
The Tswalu brand positioning was inspired by two key pillars: the Oppenheimer family creed “To leave our world better than how we found it” and the San people’s ethos of respecting and preserving the land for future generations. In keeping with this methodology, the Tswalu identity captured the three principles of history, art, and conservation. Tswalu’s history is represented by the ancient petroglyphs found on the property. These marks left for future generations mirrored Tswalu’s creed: to leave our world better than how we found it.
This is a new chapter in the Kalahari’s evolution, where people are once again respecting and preserving the land, thus leaving their mark on the area. Art is represented through our exploration of contemporary Bushman art, using modern techniques to reinterpret their history. The final form of the identity is inspired by the Camelthorn tree, a native protected species in South Africa.
The new brand challenges the misconception of the Kalahari as a lifeless desert and positions the region as a lush, green oasis worthy of preservation.
The word Tswalu can be translated as 'a new beginning,' a concept beautifully mirrored in the use of a botanical symbol to represent life, growth, and rejuvenation.
The colour palette is inspired by the Kalahari and its natural flora. The dark hills, distinctive red sand, rich greenery, and vibrant yellow flowers of the Camelthorn tree all add a unique colour story to our brand.
The browns are indicative of the perception of the Kalahari as dry and desolate, while the vibrant and rich greens and yellows showcase the reality of the Kalahari’s rejuvenation.
Inspired by the botanical theme of the new Tswalu identity, we incorporated botanical studies of the regional flora into our visual language system, thus visually preserving and celebrating the conservation of the Kalahari.
As a starting point, we approached Gill Condy, a renowned botanical artist and current artist in residence at Tswalu, to create a series for botanical studies to be used in our collateral.
The brand guidelines are inspired by traditional field guides and naturalist journals. These documents are generally used to document the behaviours and characteristics of various animal and botanical species. This pocket guide documents the behaviours and characteristics of the Tswalu brand, including current snapshots and notes for ease of reference.
As part of the brand relaunch, Tswalu partnered with Michelin-starred South African chef, Jan Hendrik van der Westhuizen to offer a unique dining experience to its guests. Opening an extension of his renowned French restaurant called Klein Jan at Tswalu. The unique dining experience offered personalised menus as wax-sealed letters to our guests.
Photography courtesy of Rachel L’Antigua for Style | Native and Tswalu Game Reserve.
Video courtesy of Tswalu Game Reserve.
Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), a division of FirstRand Bank Limited, is a leading African corporate and investment bank and Private Bank. For over 30 years, RMB has invested in liberating diverse talent to do good business for a better world. But as the business landscape continues to evolve, RMB recognised the need to evolve its brand identity to reflect the changing times while staying true to its strong African heritage. The challenge was clear: to update and evolve the RMB brand to reflect the changes in the operating strategy, business environment, and brand purpose to ensure that the brand remains relevant, modern, and distinctive to their growing client base and to the broader African market they serve.
In response, RMB embraced an evolutionary approach, retaining a sense of familiarity while infusing the brand with modernity and stature that builds on the strength of RMB’s existing brand equity. The new brand identity, symbolised by a simplified lion's head icon, embodies RMB's African heritage, strength, and the pride it takes to do good business. Complemented by a new logotype and a unique corporate font, the brand's visual language now speaks volumes, reflecting its commitment to excellence and innovation.
It was time to evolve and build on our African heritage. Adapting to a new digital world and unlocking the possibilitis of tomorrow."
A proprietary typeface, RMB Sans, has been designed to align and standardise all visual communication.
The RMB Sans typeface has been created to complement the identity and carries similar geometric features.
Additionally, a display weight has been crafted exclusively for headlines, introducing fine serifs that hint at the RMB wordmark, adding an extra layer of considered detail.
Each weight within RMB Sans has its own oblique counterpart, and an extensive collection of diacritics and international currency symbols is also included.
As part of the FirstRand Group, we tell our Better Together story with colour.
The addition of RMB amber to the classical black and white palette creates an energetic warmth that links to the African sunset, solidifying RMB’s roots in Africa.
Seeing things in a new light is liberating, as we see things more clearly. To shine a light on something is to make it clear and find solutions. It evokes an optimistic emotion that reflects our purpose to build a better world. Taking cues from RMB amber and how it represents the sun and the enthusiasm of our people, we’ve adopted the theme of light for our imagery style.
We have created an iconography style that is reflective of the RMB brand, sharing visual cues from the identity itself. All icons are created on a responsive grid with a 1PX stroke thickness that allows modular Story Icons to be easily created while simultaneously maintaining an authentic, singular visual style throughout. Brand Icons are 64PX icons that have a specific detail redrawn in RMB amber at 2PX thickness, exemplifying a truly unique and ownable RMB brand asset.
Our illustration style shifts the RMB brand onto a contemporary stage that promotes expressive use of colour, showcasing a wide array of subject matter with diverse cultures and relatable personalities. The shapes are synonymous with the RMB identity geometry, with a bold focus on angular geometry delicately complimented by a monoline background and secondary elements to create an engaging focal point.
A new system for exterior and interior signage was developed and rolled out across Africa, using distinct elements from the new brand, such as the amber strip.
Our sponsorship identities create visual interest through the use of unique identifiers within the secondary wordmark. These small touches help the viewer to identify the subject of each sponsorship. The identity also extends to co-branding and endorsement sponsorship applications.
