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We have been working with the Royal Society of Biology to reimagine their identity including the design of a new website to support their communications with students, members, professional biologists and the wider world.
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 images of the natural world and new wording to emphasise life as being at the centre of biology.
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.
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.
A second key change was the suggestion that no single pictorial ‘mark’ could effectively represent biology's diversity; instead, we developed a new word mark that is complemented by a variety of natural images and colours to bring the richness of nature to life.
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.
This combination of colour, type and image creates a diversity of visual representations that showed how the society can present itself to a wide range of audiences.
We then worked collaboratively to refine the colour palette, image library and identity touch-points so that the new direction could be shared with the RSB’s Trustees. This led to the final identity design.
We helped to develop a new strategy, multiple touchpoints, an icon set, social media assets and presentation templates together with design directions and templates for animations, sub identities and other contexts.
The imagery included examples across ‘Scales of life’, ‘Biologists at work’, ‘Cutouts from life’ and ‘Living collages’.
In parallel with the development of the identity, we undertook a review of the RSB’s website. This included a review of their audiences, goals and purpose, an analysis of the information architecture and consequently a new structure and visual design direction that builds on the overall identity.
We’ve applied the identity across various touchpoints, including social media and YouTube assets, stationery, posters, PowerPoint presentation templates, event collateral and award certificates.
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.
