Creative HQ
A rebrand to amplify impact and inspire innovation
Industry
Services, Education, Community, B2C
Role
Brand design
Year / Duration
2022
Overview
Creative HQ empowers individuals and organisations to transform bold ideas into real-world solutions. With a legacy of game-changing programmes like Lightning Lab and NZ GovTech Accelerator, the organisation inspires innovators in startups and government alike by building confidence, capability, and connectedness.
However, by late 2021, Creative HQ’s fragmented brand structure limited the impact and ability to tell a cohesive story. The goal was clear; unify the brand to make it simpler to connect with Creative HQ’s diverse audience and elevate its presence.
Results
Collaborating with Ocean Design, I supported the rollout of Creative HQ’s revitalised brand identity. Using key elements created by Ocean such as initial brand assets and tone of voice guidelines, I worked to build out the brand system and ensure consistency across all communication touchpoints. My focus was to:
Enhance brand recognition
across Creative HQ’s ecosystem of programmes
Strengthen internal alignment
with staff sharing a unified narrative
Improve audience engagement
positioning Creative HQ as a leader in innovation, locally and globally
A brand in need of cohesion, from nine to one
Operating for over 20 years, Creative HQ had become a house of brands with successful programmes that had grown independently but were disconnected from the parent brand. Creative HQ needed a brand strategy to inspire, unify and amplify, both internally and externally. There were three key goals that the work needed to address:
Divided attention
internally diluted the organisation’s impact and effectiveness.
Diluted audience recognition
hindered by promoting 9 brands instead of one.
Inefficiency
from balancing and managing so many brand channels
Playing on the edge, to inspire bravery
Ocean Design built the foundation of Creative HQ’s bold new strategy through stakeholder interviews and workshops, which uncovered a core theme; inspiring bravery. This insight shaped a new brand architecture, visual identity, and tone of voice guidelines, which the team at Creative HQ and I used to relaunch the brand ahead of its 20th anniversary.
Today, Creative HQ’s brand reflects its bold aspirations and empowers the team to confidently showcase its contributions as they support innovators who are ready to play on the edge.
What I did
Supported by the amazing team at Ocean Design.
Strategy
Stakeholder management
Design
Collateral design
Design systems and guidelines
Art direction
I'm always keen to collaborate when I have the time. Give me a shout about an upcoming project, email:
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