- Partner: Refugee Council
- Cause: Human Rights
- Location: UK
- Brand & Content
The Refugee Council has been supporting refugees in Britain since the Second World War. They should feel like part of the furniture. But rewind to last year, and the average brit didn’t even know they were a charity.
So we worked with Refugee Council and – vitally – refugees themselves, to craft a brand that felt as at home in Britain as refugees should be: The Nation’s Refugee Charity.
At a time when refugee rights have become a deeply divisive topic in the UK, this rebrand took a bold step towards bridging the divide, reflecting and supporting a greater ambition to reach more people and elevate more refugee voices across Britain.
The challenge
The UK is feeling like an increasingly divided nation, and despite our long history of welcoming refugees, they have been swept up in the polarisation. A few loud voices have made refugee support a heated debate that even persuadable Brits swerve to avoid.
For Refugee Council, this posed a challenge: how do you evoke solidarity and challenge the narrative, without fuelling the flames and alienating the public?
The brand had to be as welcoming to the average Brit as it was to refugees themselves – two audiences with vastly different perspectives, yet both essential to the orga nisation’s future.
Oh, and one extra little problem – Refugee Council’s name had led to confusion amongst both audiences, with many people totally unaware they were a charity at all. They didn’t want to change the name, but all in all, a totally new verbal and visual identity was in order.
The solution
To create a new brand, we drew on the Refugee Council’s roots as a charity founded after WWII, when Britain proudly welcomed refugees and valued their contribution to society. Our goal was to create a brand that brings refugees back into the fabric of our national identity.
And how did we do that? By bringing refugees and Britishness together at every stage.
We involved refugees and persuadable Brits throughout the process, co-creating the brand through research and feedback, and using their insights to develop a clear, inclusive identity that made complex issues accessible without losing depth.
The new brand positions Refugee Council as the Nation’s Refugee Charity, with language and designs that nod to British attitudes and heritage while putting the refugee experience at the very heart. Rooted in hope, resilience, and the undeniable fact that refugees enrich Britain, this new identity supports a greater ambition to reach more people and elevate more refugee voices across Britain.
At the core of this new brand is grit and grace—an oxymoron that reflects the complex reality of refugees and the Refugee Council’s mission. Their stories are filled with both hardship and hope, darkness and light, kindness and fierce determination.
The Refugee Council is here to do whatever it takes to help rebuild lives in Britain—whether it’s being the first welcoming face a refugee meets or fighting for their rights with facts, not fists.
Simplicity is key, but embracing contradiction reveals the true depth of the organisation, making the brand not only distinct but unforgettable.
The visual identity is inspired, and created by, the practice of lino printing. Through cutting relief into a hard surface, we create the image we want to see, using the printing process to reveal the light in the dark. Every hard, straight line has a curve to it, and every curve has sharp edges, forcing you to see the joy in the imperfection. Linocut printing is hard work and it takes time, bringing to life visually the experience, effort and determination that goes into creating a Britain where refugees can rebuild their lives.
Artistic practices are a fruitful source of inspiration in branding projects, but the key is understanding why a style is right for the organisation and what it communicates. A visual identity should never just be about aesthetics.
From the outset, refugees played a central role in shaping this rebrand, influencing how the Refugee Council speaks to audiences, but also integrating their own stories into the design itself.
We worked with refugees to create their own lino print illustrations that represent their experiences, which are featured in the new brand’s bank of illustrations and designs.
This co-creation embodies the brand’s core message of equitable collaboration, and is a powerful way for organisations to authentically put marginalised voices at the very heart of their brand.
We wanted the new brand to feel as at home in Britain as refugees should be. Refugee Council helps refugees to integrate into British society, and so the brand was designed to verbally and visually integrate refugees with our national identity. But how do you subtly send that message without covering everything in Union Jacks?
It started with the new strapline ‘The Nation’s Refugee Charity,’ but the idea ran deeper into the verbal and visual identity. We took inspiration from British idioms which have a very human feel (keep your chin up, stick your neck out…), the weather (of course), and the feeling. This involved asking refugees what says ‘Britain’ to them, with answers ranging from our tendency to offer a cup of tea instead of asking if you want to talk, to the way we love dogs more than people, leading to illustrations of mugs, pups and umbrellas.
Plus, the colour palette is not quite red white and blue and our use of patterns is a nod to Emma Bridgewater. It’s the little things.
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