The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has engaged Missouri Creative to refresh the look and feel of its marketing and brand communications.
Though no changes were made to the core RNLI logo Missouri worked with the charity’s creative services team to develop new brand guidelines, covering elements of RNLI’s visual identity such as colour, photography and typography.
One of the changes made by Missouri to the RNLI’s branding was to change its distinctive colour palette making it more refined in a bid to build instant visual recognition across communications. The colour palette has been inspired by the RNLI world incorporating the vivid orange of its boats, the red of its lifeguard uniforms, the yellow of its boots, and the blue of the existing logo. Complimentary grey and blue tones representing the sea and the sky have also been used. Stuart Wood, creative partner at Missouri, commented: “Our brief was to create a more consistent visual language which would reflect the RNLI’s unique brand personality. Our solution has been to develop a language where all creative is based around three key values of the RNLI's tone of voice – Active, Personal and Reliable. These three parts can then be toned up and down according to message, mood, channel and audience – using different balances of colour, typography and imagery.”
Wood added that the visual and written tone of the communications has been designed to be able to flex with how engaged the audience is explaining that for an audience who don’t know much about the RNLI “we’ll dial up the active tone with bold, punchy copylines, action-packed photos and vibrant colours” and with the charity’s loyal supporters “emphasis will be more on the RNLI’s personal and reliable side – using more familiar copy, combined with photos and colours drawn from the more reflective end of our colour palette.”Following the work on the guidelines Missouri has now been charged with redesigning the packaging for RNLI products sold via the charity’s online shop, mail order catalogue and network of 140 high street shops.
