Venner Shipley

We partnered with Venner Shipley, one of the UK’s leading IP law firms, to help them strengthen and expand their European presence, shift their positioning from pure IP to a more diverse service offering and a focus on emerging science and technology sectors and to provide a clear point of competitor differentiation built around a new brand narrative.  

With a truly collaborative and insightful approach to protecting some of the world’s leading intellectual property  they clearly had a lot to offer, so our challenge was simple: how can we redefine IP within the context of their unique abilities and align that to their audiences needs, and bring the essence of the brand to life without losing the core of what had made them successful to date?

Our immersion phase identified significant differentiators which we used to aligned with a new brand strategy and their business ambitions. Instead of providing professional IP and legal services, Venner Shipley now bring the future into focus – by cutting through challenges to deliver unique ideas and different perspectives.

Creative direction

With our design strategy anchored by the notion of ‘Unique Perspectives’, we built a system around moving ‘planes’, used to represent different points of view. The graphics provide a sense of depth and connote a technical aesthetic, married with a human tone, to deliver a dynamic, approachable and authentic brand tone.

Typography

Zichtbaar by Playtype was chosen for its blend of geometric forms with gentler, more humanist properties. The result is a distinct and utilitarian brand typeface, peppered with discreet flashes of character and personality. This fusion reflects Venner Shipley’s key qualities; balancing a strategic approach with the power of people, creating an holistic brand typeface that goes beyond the traditional.

The colour palette is built out from dark purple, or ‘Amethyst’. Purple was a perfect fit for Venner Shipley's industry with connotations of imagination, curiosity and rarity. Sitting at the very edge of the colour spectrum, purple symbolises the cutting-edge inventiveness that Venner Shipley embody.

A considered set of greens and blues extend the day and night palette, offering variation whilst staying cohesive, ranging from bright and energetic to mature and responsible.

The new Venner Shipley brand identity was consistently applied to a comprehensive range of branded materials – from a completely update website design solution and corporate communication suite, thorough to practical yet impactful digital and social templates. 

Creative implementation of the perspective plane throughout the brand activations, provided a really strong design structure. We used this consistently to highlight areas of a particular sector image and give more depth and variation to our text backgrounds. It was essential to leave the marketing team with a robust design system that was easy to use in the long term, whilst also reflecting the fundamental elements of the initial brand identity.