Intro

A comprehensive brand visual identity I created from scratch for Digital Futures – a London-based tech consulting start-up founded in 2020. 

The brand identity started with the basic elements of a logo, core colour palette, typography and a bespoke icon set. This was then built out to include brand icon patterns, photography and illustration styles. The brand was applied to the main company website, brand guidelines, social media content, ad campaigns, presentations, documents, HTML emails, branded merchandise, a client-facing web app and more.

About Digital Futures

Digital Futures is a London-based tech consulting start-up which delivers technology consulting services to large organisations in the UK. It trains graduates and young adults in software engineering, data science and cloud engineering (cloud computing), with a tremendous emphasis on diversity – working to improve the diversity within the tech sector.

Digital Futures was founded in 2020 and I became involved at the very early stages of the business concept and market research – helping to develop and define the brand strategy, design the brand visual identity, brand assets and an early version of the website alongside the formation of the company, followed by social media graphics, ads, HTML emails and presentations.

In 2021 I became Design Lead for Digital Futures for just over a year, working with their brilliant in-house team, UX Lead and key stakeholders to deliver and evolve the main company website, the social media presence including designing organic post tiles and paid ad campaigns, a client-facing web app, developing the brand identity and brand assets, infographics, presentations, documents and more.

I now continue to work in collaboration with Digital Futures and their in-house team to design marketing materials such as social media content, ad campaigns, and to develop key brand touch-points such as the website.

Social media

Social media marketing was (and remains) a key part of the strategy for launching and building the business, requiring a regular stream of organic social media content, as well as paid social media ads for specific campaigns such as brand awareness or recruitment to the programme. I worked closely with the in-house marketing team to bring these content ideas to life, making them engaging and attractive, and evolving the brand look & feel over time.

Icons

The brand identity included a set of bespoke icons that I custom designed specially for Digital Futures. The icon set was designed specifically for use on the website and across marketing applications such as for social media tiles, ads and presentations, helping to visually bring to life and communicate key concepts for the business.

The bespoke icons were developed further into icon patterns – brand assets which could be used in a multitude of ways, such as on the website, in presentations, in social media marketing, ads or in a client-facing web app. As brand assets they are endlessly adaptable and customisable, with different combinations to reflect different themes, with different colour combinations as required.

Brand identity

The brand visual identity developed was built using a consistent set of building blocks – such as the logo, core brand colour palette, typography, icons, patterns, photography and illustration styles. These were naturally defined within a brand guidelines document, to provide a reference authority for anyone working with the brand visually, to help ensure brand consistency. 

The brand was built out with a suite of presentations and templates to help the company showcase itself and its services to clients in particular, as well as for employees and potential applicants. These were designed to be clear, engaging, inspiring and memorable, as well as adaptable for different situations and for the various in-house teams to work with.

I also developed a range of infographics for Digital Futures, defining a consistent look & feel for how the organisation should present data in its communications, such as in presentations and occasionally on social media. Again, the infographics were designed to be clear, engaging and inspiring, using splashes of colour to highlight key statistics and stories.