Busy as AB

What did we do?

This blog looks back at the Beacon Scientific Consulting identity project. A business where we were involved from the very beginning, helping set-up the cornerstones that will allow this business to flourish.

Name and USP

Before doing anything, we sit down with our clients and listen to what they are doing. Asking questions to help us understand what makes them different. This will become the cornerstone upon which everything is built, their unique selling point (USP).

With the USP agreed, we move on to the next part of this phase, developing the business name. This is another critically important step in the bigger process of brand development.

Every business sector is full of acronyms and technical terms, so creating something simple and human is always important. This requires a lot of research and understanding of the sector – the products and services and of course the people.

I often talk to clients about this work needing to ‘fit them’ – like tailored clothes – you have to feel comfortable ‘wearing’ the name and identity because anything that you’re not 100% comfortable with will become apparent in everything, initially this might be your body language and the way in which you present your business, over time if it’s not right, it will pollute everything. So everyone (both sides) being honest, and supportive, is crucial.

Domains and digital resources

There are so many suppliers and a lot of technical terminology that it can be hard to know what you need and what you don’t when you’re starting something new. The ‘name’ aspect of our brand development work is integral to domain structures and availability. We strive for simple and clear, names and domains that can be understood, without the need to spell them out – physically or verbally.

Then comes the digital resources that sit around the domain, from email and Office 365 to website and CRM. We have worked with most of the popular systems and often help clients set-up these aspects, ensuring that they are presenting a consistent, professional image at every point in the customer experience.

Presentation Deck

Presentation decks are a central part of almost every business, especially for those working with large organisations, where the deck is often the thing your customers and collaborators will spend the most time with. The language – both the visual imagery and tone of the text – within the slides is where people will really get to know your brand.

Within healthcare there are many clichés – images of ‘happy people’ or ‘microscope fractals’ in every colour imaginable. It can be hard to know, at a glance, which company you are working with. For BSC we developed a specific illustrative style and colour palette, in order to make the decks stand out, taking a considered and deliberate stance that was different from the competition.

Identity and visual style

Every visual identity has to work really hard. The marks will appear across all manner of media, from a small icon on a phone screen to a giant logo on a conference presentation. Developing a mark that works at many different scales and across a wide range of formats is crucial.

For Jill and BSC we really embraced the less is more approach. Something that I always strive for within our work, it was great to see Jill embrace this approach and the finished brand mark speaks for themselves, able to comfortably stand side by side with large, global organisations.

Tone of voice

As I’ve already mentioned, how you present a business visually and verbally is at the heart of your business growth. Within healthcare there are cultural nuances that you need to observe, understand and embrace. We helped Jill maintain the ‘less is more’ mantra throughout the communications.

Summary

That’s a very quick overview of the work that has helped Jill and the BSC team in recent weeks.  We love learning and finding new ways to express what makes a business human. Whether that’s a start-up (as here) or an established brand looking to expand, refresh or diversify…sometimes we go the other way as well, helping businesses reduce and consolidate.

This is just one example of the work we, the Busy as AB team, produce. The research, analysis, thinking and development that sits behind what you see as a client or customer. Our work always centres around the same statement, “Is it human?” All our work seeks to create rich, human connections between people and products or services. If you’d like to know more about what we do, contact us.