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PlaceShapers – brand update

Services: Brand strategy and development/Creative campaigns/Design and digital/Strategic communications
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Updated brand and messaging for greater influence

PlaceShapers is a national network of more than a hundred community-focused housing associations. Its members share a commitment to going beyond housing to offer customers and neighbourhoods extra support with education, skills, jobs, health, the environment, digital and financial inclusion. We’ve helped to establish, develop and promote the group for more than a decade (for example, through the #wework and #webuild campaigns).

At the beginning of 2021 PlaceShapers asked us to help refresh its narrative and possibly develop a new visual identity. We used our proven ‘5Ds’ methodology to discover what made PlaceShapers special and what members valued most. This involved structured, one-to-one interviews with PlaceShapers’ executive, member representatives, the Regulator of Social Housing and key partners, plus workshops with the board and communications sub-group. We also looked in detail at the chair’s personal profile and how to align it more closely to the network’s core principles.

With an updated brand circle and compelling narrative in place, the client decided to go for a new visual identity to match. We undertook more consultation with members and partners to develop a colourful and striking look based around a circle motif. The patterns in the new logo reflect the diverse communities that PlaceShaper housing associations support, with people at the centre of everything. The refreshed identity was launched to considerable praise at the network’s annual conference in autumn 2021. In 2023, we worked with the executive team to help devise the content and lead the design of its new strategic plan.

Our Strategic Plan is a really important output for us. We wanted it to be bold, clear, concise and engaging. Creative Bridge understood immediately what we wanted from them and turned the plan into something we are really proud of. They helped bring real clarity to the messaging, as well as creating something that works visually. This is the first time I have worked with Creative Bridge and was really impressed by the whole team.
Catherine Ryder, chief executive, PlaceShapers