Royal Society of Biology: New identity and website design

We have been working with the Royal Society of Biology to refresh their identity and design a new website and assets to support their communications with young people, members, professional biologists and the wider world. 

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Original website and identity 

In our first meeting with the team, we suggested a new website structure that related to the concepts of discovery, development, decision making and society, using free-floating images of the natural world to emphasise life as being at the centre of biology.

But we emphasised the importance of co-design and our desire to listen and learn from the team and their members as part of an ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship, a fundamental characteristic of flourishing ecosystems and human societies. 

Initial design proposal

Liking our approach, the team invited us to rethink their identity which also needed updating. 

Our initial discovery workshop asked the team to share their hopes and concerns for the future of RSB’s identity and strategy, review what was important or challenging about their existing identity and suggest a potential design direction to initiate a deeper conversation about the future direction. 

Colour

Our first design insights related to colour, suggesting that the blue and green of the existing logo did not reflect all of life. We referenced Nature’s palette: a colour reference system from the natural world (1814), highlighting that the underlying colours of living things included greens, yellows, orange, red, brown, purple and violet. True blue colours or pigment are rare in nature and most plants and animals use light to appear blue. This led to a new colour palette that aimed to represent their whole of life rather than a specific life form. 

We also built on these colours and the diversity of life to suggest a possible image direction, highlighting the wonder and beauty of life‘s patterns at every scale.

Logo

A second key change was the suggestion that no single pictorial ‘mark’ could effectively represent the RSB’s diversity; instead, a type-only logo would be more fitting, complemented by a variety of natural images and colours to bring the society to life.

Typefaces

We used Noto typeface in sans and serif form to capture both the modern nature of biological research and the deep tradition that informs the life sciences, from the earliest humans who passed on knowledge about plants and animals to the more recent coherent field that arose in the 19th century.

This combination of colour, font and image created a diversity of visual representations that showed the society how it could present itself to a wide range of audiences.

The executive team and in-house designers and editors embraced this direction. We then worked collaboratively to refine the colour palette, image library and identity touchpoints so that the new direction could be shared with the RSB’s Trustees, who represent a range of the Society’s membership and provided honest feedback on how the identity supports them and the wider life science community. This led to the final identity design.

We helped to develop a new strategy, detailed designs of the identity across multiple touch-points, an icon set, social media assets and presentation templates together with design directions and templates for animations, sub identities and other contexts.


 
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Imagery

The imagery included examples across ‘Scales of life’, ‘Biologists at work’, ‘Cutouts from life’ and ‘Living collages’.

RSB’s animation direction builds on scales, people and cut-outs to create a visual world that is diverse, full of life and play. Inspired by artists like Céline Baumann, who used cut-outs to create Parliament of Plants, it engages audiences in a multi-sensory and tactile experience. This helps communicate complex ideas in accessible ways without sacrificing depth, showcases the diversity of life allowing us to transition between different scales and perspectives, and fosters scientific curiosity by encouraging audiences to discover, develop and even decide on the direction of their own lives.

Website

In parallel with the development of the identity, we undertook a review of the RSB’s website and held a number of co-design meetings with the editor, in-house designer and developer. This included a review of RSB’s audiences, its goals and purpose, an analysis of the information architecture and a proposed site map direction, development of key wireframes and a visual design direction that builds on the overall identity.

Physical and digital touchpoints

We’ve applied the identity across various touchpoints, including social media and YouTube assets, stationery, posters, PowerPoint presentation templates, event collateral and award certificates.

Sub brands

We provided design guidelines for updating The Biologist magazine, ensuring a clear connection to the RSB. We also developed other sub brands including the RSB‘s Bioscience careers day and Biology week.

We are now in the process of building all of the components needed to complete the development of the website and look forward to its launch this autumn.

If you are interested in using design to engage with your audiences, transform your strategy and communications and engage with global challenges, please do get in touch.