Health, Identity, Digital

Dunhill Medical Trust rebrand and website

Dunhill Medical Trust (DMT) is an established charity, who for over thirty years has been helping UK academic and clinical researchers to understand and treat age-related diseases and frailty as well as support improved care in the community. We were asked to reimagine their identity and website as well as to improve the ways that they communicated their work to the research community and the wider world.

View the new website dunhillmedical.org.uk

“Our brief was probably the most challenging I’ve ever given to a creative agency. But the Design Science team made every effort to understand us as an organisation and came up with a number of options. It felt like a true partnership when, together, we decided on the rivers and streams theme. That was the lightbulb moment.”

Susan Kay, Executive Director, Dunhill Medical Trust

What we did

We worked with the Chair and staff team to design a new visual identity and to re-imagine how they communicate the work they support through their funding.

Discovery workshop

We began with a workshop where we listened to the team’s hopes and concerns. In this design research phase we explored a variety of design directions and developed a new Identity and brand guidelines that has repositioned their work in the complex world of healthcare research.

We identified three themes that underpin their funding philosophy and were inspired by the way old rivers bend and form oxbows that create rich, complex and diverse ecosystems.

“The team at Design Science took the time to go beyond just designing something that ‘looked good’ – from the start they were keen to really understand our ethos and principles as an organisation and showcase these. We’ve asked a lot of them, but they’ve always been highly responsive to any suggestions we’ve made. It’s been a real pleasure working alongside them.”

Oliver Soutar, Grants Officer, Dunhill Medical Trust

Visual identity guidelines

The final logotype provided a flexible format which was then adapted to support different communication media from website to signage, which we integrated into a comprehensive set of brand guidelines that the client can build on for their future reports and activities. The guidelines include examples from stationery and annual reports to the website and social media.

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Website development

While the original website provided the basic requirements for researchers, it was difficult to navigate and did not celebrate DMT’s work or provide a positive gateway to showcase the work that they funded.

Responsive and colourful design

The new responsive website now provides DMT with a rich platform through which they are able to show how they support research, guide the application and management of grants as well as share the success stories behind their funding.

Annual Report and other touch-points

We also developed all the other touch-points that the DMT needs in their everyday work including reports, business cards and letterheads. As the DMT gets used to the new identity we think that it will be able to grow and adapt to become a playful and exciting companion that supports the organisation in their next stages of development.