As a Staffordshire-based brand and design agency, we have worked with Staffordshire Women’s Aid for many years. This charity has been providing services since 1976, regardless of sex, age, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, religion or class. It helps people in safe and secure spaces if they are experiencing domestic or sexual violence. A key part of its work also involves raising awareness of inequality and the impact this has on communities.

Its identity should therefore connect with people directly, making sure that they feel that their voice is being heard. But the existing brand and messaging weren’t quite right. The tone of voice used wasn’t personal or diverse enough. So Staffordshire Women’s Aid turned to us as their trusted, long-term brand partners. We believe in giving back to our local community so it was our privilege to help them to refresh their image.

Our aim was to appeal to a more diverse audience and to convey a more one-to-one personal tone. We started by refreshing the logo giving it a cleaner, more defined feel and we changed the strapline to ‘Helping You Find Your Voice’. This was much more personal than the old one ‘Together against domestic violence since 1976’. We then refreshed all the marketing literature using new and more realistic imagery and we gave the website a more inclusive feel.

As part of the brand development we changed the messaging to a more individual tone, using the first person such as ‘you’ and ‘we’. And we created new sub brands for the service areas making them easier to find. Our last task was to design an image for the charity’s latest fundraiser Challenge 45 Fundraiser celebrating their 45th birthday. Throughout the project, our aim was to create subtle changes, which we hoped would make a huge difference. We think we succeeded!