Reposition and rebrand for growth

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Before the rebrand, Hertfordshire Growth Hub’s brand identity was dated and lacked distinction. The few assets they had were difficult to use legibly across all communication channels. This rebrand set out to address those issues.

I focused on the visuals, working in partnership with Hertfordshire LEP's in-house communications team. They looked after positioning, tone of voice and content.

Hertfordshire Growth Hub works with small to medium-sized enterprises at every business stage. The new identity was designed to feel accessible – a core brand value – and resonate with this varied audience. The branding accentuates the brand’s mission to help businesses in the county to scale and innovate.

Logo and brand identity design

The concept of growth is a core part of the new identity, symbolised by the steps icon in the new logo. The wordmark features rounded characters for an approachable feel, while upper case adds authority. Long brand names are a challenge when it comes to logo design, but I used a condensed typeface to overcome this. It provides strong legibility even at small reproduction sizes, enabling the new logo to be used consistently across a variety of media and formats.

The steps icon is not only symbolic, it’s a visual feature that helps people quickly identify the Growth Hub brand. Used as a standalone graphic as well as in the logo, repetition improves brand awareness.

For colour, the primary blue palette has a sense of reliability and the brighter secondary colours, teal and tangerine, add energy. The brand typeface is legible, versatile and warm, ticking the right boxes for the brand by looking friendly and professional. A genuine photography style supports the brand, showcasing 'real' people in a natural, relaxed manner – the feel is approachable all the way.

Hertfordshire Growth Hub’s tone of voice is yet another important element of its identity. It is knowledgeable, but above all relatable. It talks positively about collaboration and partnership, working hand in hand with the visuals to reflect brand values.

Brand relationships

The design brief included a requirement to demonstrate complex but important brand relationships with key stakeholders. Firstly, all communications had to clearly show the Growth Hub’s position as part of the LEP brand family. As well, materials had to include funding partners’ logos to acknowledge them. The design challenge was to ensure the Growth Hub brand remains the most prominent.

To do this, we went for simplicity. A consistently-styled descriptor ‘Powered by Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership’ is used on all communications to show the relationship between the parent and sub-brand. This avoids the need for the potential clash of using several different visual identities on each communication.

Funding partner logos (European Regional Development Fund and HM Government) adhere to strict size restrictions. Design hierarchy helps the Growth Hub logo stand out. It appears prominently at the top of each communication, followed by the descriptor which appears above the funding partner logos. These details were part of a comprehensive set of brand guidelines to ensure correct implementation in different scenarios.

The new identity in action

The new identity also needed to be easily implemented by Hertfordshire Growth Hub’s in-house internal design team, who will look after the brands ongoing design needs. That meant creating a suite of editable templates – from flyers and banners to social banners and presentation decks – as well as thorough brand style guidelines.

The contemporary new brand identity communicates effectively for the Hertfordshire Growth Hub, providing a strong professional image. It successfully positions the brand within an overall growth narrative for Hertfordshire, as led by Hertfordshire LEP and its key partners. The overall aesthetic evokes a new sense of confidence and clarity for Hertfordshire Growth Hub.