Objective

The Investment Association is the trade body for the UK's asset and investment management industry. It wanted a distinctive brand treatment for content it already had, pushing that content to the forefront of its industry through engaging infographics and imagery, and challenging the status quo of corporate financial-services branding with something more progressive and more diverse.

The core difficulty was tonal, and it was a narrow gap to hit. The work had to bridge traditional financial services and the more inviting register of consumer material, without straying so far from the IA's existing branding that the organisation became unrecognisable to its own members.

Creative response

The IA design programme sat inside that function: the visual language, the infographic system and the content treatments across print, digital and social were produced in-house.

The work shown here covers design and digital delivery.

• A tone, found deliberately. The central piece of work was locating the register between institutional finance and consumer accessibility, close enough to the existing IA brand to stay recognisable, far enough to stop looking like every other trade body.
• Online publications. Fresh, bold treatments applied to the IA's digital output.
• Print publications. The same system carried into printed material rather than left as a digital-only skin.
• Newsletters. Redesigned within the new language.
• Social content. Infographics and imagery built specifically for feed behaviour, the channel where the measurable change landed.

No new research and no new content were commissioned. The variable being tested was the design system itself, applied to material the IA was already publishing.

Results

1.2% → 4.2%, social engagement rate: previous rate against the average on posts using the new design

3.5×, the ratio between those two figures

DIA 2018, Digital Impact Awards commendation, Best use of digital

INTERNAL, design elements praised by IA members and employees

design alone, with content held constant, moved a measurable number.

2% and 4.2% rates. The 3.5× ratio above is arithmetic on the two stated figures, not a separate source claim.

The work