BEN ROBINSON

The latest inspirational advert from the challengers to Nike and Adidas’s sporting crowns has left the starting blocks with a splash.

A new 60 second spot for Under Armour’s #WeWill campaign features Syrian Olympic swimmer Yusra Mardini and a powerful tale of overcoming the most extreme challenges. Yusra competed as part of the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, having left her family and home in war-torn Syria just a year prior.

The Under Armour ad picks up the inspirational story as part of a wider campaign that also supported the relief efforts of first responders after the devastating Hurricane Harvey. The underlying message is that “sports can inspire, unite, and even change the world.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RWVgnrQtZM

An ambitious message, perhaps, but time and again sport proves to be a fantastic way to promote international unity and tell stories of challenging lives overcoming adversity. Events such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA Wold Cup truly do bring billions of people together and allow for inspiring tales to be told.

This year, we are also hearing some tales that until recently were less commonly told in the sporting arena. Finally it seems, there is a genuine shift in focus to bring women in to the picture. Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign has been hugely successful in getting more women more active in the UK since it’s launch in 2015.

However, the most emphatic new voices are coming from the Middle East. Yusra’s story follows on from Nike’s move to launch an athletic hijab after seeing Sarah Attar sprinting for Saudi Arabia at the London 2010 Olympics. Due for release in Spring 2018, the hijab line was announced with an epic ad showing Middle Eastern women playing their sport and looking seriously cool doing it. Finally, sport is no longer just for men.

With changing attitudes in the Middle East, as well as an acknowledged need to get everyone – but especially women – more active in the region, these are timely and well-produced campaigns. Working to encourage activity, they may also work to encourage unity, as more campaigns launch in the build up to the Qatar 2022 World Cup will finally give the Middle East some international sporting credentials to get behind and help open up a region that is alien and misunderstood by many – athletically or otherwise.

It seems that maybe sport does have the power to change the world. No longer just for men. No longer just a game.

Congratulations to Iridium, on the launch of their new identity at the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA) Annual Conference 2017, at The Address Mall, Dubai.

As a primary sponsor, Iridium’s new identity took a prominent place at the conference, providing a distinctive backdrop for the important industry event. We were pleased to be able to support Iridium with the unveiling of the new identity, developed by Aeron, by providing designs for the nomadic stand, roll-up banners and additional materials.

Context

Iridium was founded in 2015 as the Middle East’s first pure investor relations consultancy and technology firm. In a short time, Iridium established itself as the region’s leading investor relations advisor.

Iridium’s business model is underpinned by the growing interest of international investors in MENA equities, greater regulation of investor relations by GCC governments and continuous advances in global best practices.

Ambition

Working across strategy, finance, investor relations and communications, Iridium brings rigour, coherence and consistency to the heart of senior management, and enables them to project confidence and clarity to the global investment community.

Our task was to create a compelling corporate visual identity system, which would encapsulate Iridium’s ambition, proposition and guiding principles.

Action

We worked closely with Iridium to get a thorough understanding of its position in the market, its appeal to clients and the key differentiators the brand should stand for.

We created a distinctive wordmark and symbol for Iridium that reflects the belief that high quality investor relations are the hallmark of successful capital markets.

The wordmark and symbol are strongly interlinked, to represent the synergy Iridium builds with its clients, and are formed by the dots from each letter ‘i’ escaping the confines of the type to create an ellipsis symbol that hints at Iridium’s ability to identify and close gaps, and unlock new opportunities. The three dots also encapsulate Iridium’s three key principles: insights.influence.impact.

The symbol then opened up a comprehensive visual identity system that enabled distinctive and dynamic brand communication. This system was rooted in a grid matrix, built from the dots of the ellipsis, and highlighting the attention to detail and fine technical analysis that Iridium prides itself on.

Overall, the visual identity system includes a broad range of brand assets from new typography, a full logo suite, corporate stationery, infographics, icons and photography to marketing communications – including investment reports and digital newsletters. In addition we provided design direction for digital applications such as a new website, presentations and signage, wayfinding and brand environments.

Response

The new identity was unveiled to the capital markets investment community on Tuesday September 19, 2017 in Dubai at the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA) annual conference. Iridium’s bold new identity took a prominent position at the conference, thanks to Iridium’s sponsorship of the event.

We have continued to support Iridium in the development of the identity since the initial launch, exploring additional elements and refining the design system to ensure its flexible use across different applications.

More information about Iridium is available from their website: iridium.ae

About Aeron

We are Aeron, a London brand design consultancy that specialises in business transformation, brand strategy and design. Our purpose is set on helping ambitious businesses thrive in today’s market place.

Based on fundamental insights, our London brand design consultancy is expert in helping organisations define their brand purpose; a clear, relevant, ownable and defendable territory – which delivers genuine value to customers.

With a reputation for linking brand strategy and innovative design with clear financial outcomes, our London branding agency combines intelligent data, imaginative insight with inspiring creativity and transformative digital technology to deliver enduring growth.

Agrivita, the UAE’s market-leading feed brand, has launched a new website, agrivitafeeds.com, featuring the identity, icons and packaging designed by the team at Aeron.

The Agrivita brand was launched in 2014 after parent company Grand Mills separated it’s consumer and business flour operations from its business animal feed services. Our team created the new brand in close partnership with Grand Mills and Agthia, developing a bold new name and identity for the brand.

Since then Agrivita has been a prominent brand in the UAE, sponsoring the Nahab camel race in Al Wathba in July 2017, which is one of the toughest competitions for Arabian camels.

A post shared by Agthia Group (@agthiagroup) on Jul 25, 2017 at 11:17pm PDT

According to Agthia, the new website, launched in August 2017, aims to “provide a one stop reference guide for Animal Nutrition & Farming generic to anywhere in the world and specific to the Gulf; farming under the extreme climate.”

You can read more about our work with Agrivita, and view some of our designs, on our case study page below:

BEN ROBINSON

When we think of details that define a city, architecture is often first in line to illustrate location: The Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, Burj Khalifa, and the Palace of Westminster all immediately conjure up images of their respective home cities, countries and cultures.

Down from the towers and back at street level and public transport plays it’s part too – the big yellow taxis of NYC versus London’s hefty black cabs and statuesque red double-deckers portray two strikingly different and iconic street scenes.

However, it’s when you go even further down that you can find something that can be taken completely out of context, and used subtly to create something that is still wonderfully evocative.

Hector Guimard’s fantastically audacious Art Noveau Metro entrances are unmistakably Parisian, the New York subway features signs that are smart and practical (though fairly boring, like much of America’s urban planning) set in the internationally ubiquitous Helvetica, but enter the London Underground and you are met with a mark almost 100 years old and barely changed, that defines a city like no other piece of graphic design.

Edward Johnston’s take on the Transport for London (TfL) roundel remains one of the most identifiable logos in the world. And at the heart of it, is a new font – that is as iconic as the device it sits in.

It is difficult to fathom now quite how revolutionary Johnston’s clean serif font must have been in the early 20th Century, but BBC4 documentary Two Types gives a good indication. In the programme typeface expert Mark Ovenden takes a look at the origins of the new style and the impact it has had in international design.

Johnston was commissioned to create a font by Frank Pick, who was in charge trying to forge a unified identity for TfL in an age when fly-posting and random font selection made text communication a nightmare to navigate. Pick pushed for design-led solutions, and his time on the Underground is famous for the ground-breaking graphic design and advertising.

Indeed, the legibility of Johnston’s smart serifs made it a must for transport planning and easy reading of signs. The calligrapher’s apprentice, Eric Gill, then went on to develop his own version – whose stylish beauty is matched only by its ubiquity. The fonts Johnston and Gill revolutionised type design in the 20th Century and their fresh and crisp letterforms mean that Gill is still a first weapon of choice for many designers.

What was interesting to learn about Johnston was that while Gill was released far and wide, TfL held on tightly to Johnston. No printer was allowed to use the fonts for any other client, and the letterforms were never available for licensing.

Pick’s strong grasp of the importance of unified and controlled branding was summed up in Johnston’s design for the Roundel and the accompanying brand guidelines. Indeed, this provided the blueprint not just for using the TFL brand – but for defining consistent brand application for any new identity.

It also meant that the font’s association with the city has endured like no other – even as other fonts, including Gareth Hague’s edgy 2012 Headline for the London Olympics, have come and gone.

Now, it seems other cities are at last getting in on the act. The executive council of Dubai has partnered with Microsoft and Monotype to develop the city’s own typeface. Clean, modern and easily legible, it owes much to Johnston and Gill, although with less of the distinctive character in it’s English letters. Crucially, however, it is also available in Arabic – bringing a very calligraphic language firmly into the 21st century. Whether it will have the durability, or definition, that Johnston has enjoyed, only time will tell.

We are delighted to see the new brand for Dammam Airports Company taking off, after its public launch recently.

Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport is being privatised as part of Saudi Vision 2030, and we have been working closely with GACA to craft an identity for the newly formed company that will own and manage the airport. The fresh new look for DACO will sit hand-in-hand with a new identity for the airport itself.

Vision 2030 includes an ambitious plan for investment and development in Saudi Arabia, and KFIA will be key for enabling opportunities in KSA’s eastern region, as noted by KFIA Director-General Turki bin Abdullah Al-Jawini. Quoted in Arab News, Mr Al-Jawani said, “Air transport has played, through time, an important role in the economic, social and cultural development in the eastern region, highlighting, in particular, KFIA’s significant role, since it has been laid into commission in 1999.”

The brand was launched at a ceremony attended by various government officials, businessmen, airport executives and representatives of several airlines. The grand unveiling of the identity came with the premier of the logo reveal film we created for the event.

Our identity for DACO can be seen across social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook.

Raising Standards in Aviation

Context

As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia focuses on Saudi Vision 2030 as a means to drive economic development and social advancement, GACA and Saudi Arabian Airports have an instrumental role in achieving the plan’s goals by enhancing the connectivity of the Nation.

As a result of the directive of Vision 2030, GACA is in the process of refreshing and clarifying its business strategy including the privatisation of its network of airports.

Ambition

In line with this, and based on its current corporate brand values, the initial task at hand was to assess, plan and deliver a clear, relevant and differentiated brand and campaign strategy to promote Dammam International Airport.

The airport has the ambition to be a progressive driver of economic development and symbol of national pride and the rebrand will help enable this by creating clarity, consistency and leadership.

Action

We developed an entirely new brand visual and verbal identity system based on the airport’s existing brand values of professional, dependable and forward-looking. Addressing touchpoints across the airport infrastructure we created an identity that aims to feel approachable, dynamic and timeless and allows for the airport identity, KFIA, to sit comfortably within the parent company brand, DACO.

Results

The brand film we prepared to herald the launch of the DACO brand was premiered in the Summer of 2017. As the new look is rolled-out we continue to support DACO and KFIA to ensure the identity takes-off and reach new heights.

About Aeron

We are Aeron, a London brand design consultancy that specialises in business transformation, brand strategy and design. Our purpose is set on helping ambitious businesses thrive in today’s market place.

Based on fundamental insights, our London brand design consultancy is expert in helping organisations define their brand purpose; a clear, relevant, ownable and defendable territory – which delivers genuine value to customers.

With a reputation for linking brand strategy and innovative design with clear financial outcomes, our London branding agency combines intelligent data, imaginative insight with inspiring creativity and transformative digital technology to deliver enduring growth.