How can branding help to communicate urgency and the dire state of the planet while still inspiring hope and optimism? Among Equals’ Nick May explains how to strike the balance.
Global environmental action NGO WRAP has a new informative yet striking identity, designed by the London-based studio Among Equals. The goal of the rebrand was to better communicate the urgency of WRAP’s ambition to reform unsustainable ‘take-make-dispose’ production systems in favour of more sustainable and circular ones.
WRAP started as a government-funded body that worked with local authorities in the UK and has since scaled to become an international environmental NGO working with brands, citizens, and governments in over 40 countries. Although it’s proud of its origins, its identity needed to be more representative of the organisation it is today.
It was clear from the start that, while fascinating, the brief would not be simple, as Among Equals had many different audiences and stakeholders to consider. Not only this, but WRAP is trying to solve some really complex sustainability issues, and the organisation itself has grown and evolved very quickly, according to Among Equals creative director Nick May.
He reveals that almost 50% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the products WRAP is trying to make more sustainable, so the pressure was on to do a great job. Having worked in the sustainability sector and with NGOs, the studio team felt confident taking on the challenge. One of Among Equals’ founders has a technical background in sustainability, and its creative team is well-versed in turning complex sustainability topics into compelling creative ideas.
“It’s an area we as an agency find fascinating, and obviously, it’s incredibly important,” says May. “I’ve got a young kid, and I worry about the world we are leaving that generation.”
Because WRAP faces a lot of different global audiences and works across many issues, the governments and businesses it works with may not even realise the breadth of its capabilities. One thing that rings true throughout all of its initiatives is its focus on redesigning today’s systems and changing how we make and dispose of everyday products to create a sustainable circular economy.
The strategy developed by Among Equals was led by the idea that “effective brands need to have a simple idea at their core”, says May, which is why the studio looked to implement a unifying element to encapsulate its work.
One of the biggest challenges was “shaking off the hangover of bad sustainability visuals and tired clichés,” May explains, adding that WRAP had to balance being a “mature, credible global NGO while dodging all the overused, eye-rolling sustainability visuals that everyone’s seen a thousand times”.
In his view, climate communications tend to be one of two extremes: “very dull and corporate, or frantic and urgent”. While the former has no place in this sector, the latter has a place in some scenarios but would ultimately be off-putting to the organisations WRAP needs to work with. May notes that being “devoid of hope” hardly inspires action, so Among Equals tried to create something “compelling and urgent but also hopeful and professional”.
There is also a fine line between communicating how much trouble the planet is in and giving people the hope and motivation to do something about it, so essentially, the brand message had to be both urgent and inspiring.
To find this sweet spot, Among Equals went through several design iterations of the logo – which informs everything else in the identity – to find the right balance of ‘brokenness’. “Too broken, and it felt too scary; too perfect, and it lacked urgency,” says May.
“The logo had to show a world in trouble without making it seem beyond repair, so it was a process of making very small changes and seeing what emotions they pulled.”
The result is an emblem that subverts a fairly classic depiction of the world, showing it broken and in disarray with keylines that don’t quite align. Designed to be the opposite of pretty or perfect, the logo makes an emphatic point about broken systems but also shows there is hope, as it transforms from a broken graphic in the top left down to a fixed version in the bottom right.
“We don’t expect people to get all of that just by seeing it,” says May, “but they should get a sense of things not being right with the world and that there is hope and potential for change.”
For the photography, Among Equals took inspiration from the work of Edward Burtynsky, a photographer who looks at our impact on the world through macro photography. May describes how his aerial photographs often look serene but actually show the scale of the effects of unsustainable production methods when you take a closer look.
In this way, the style is evocative of the broken systems WRAP aims to address and contrasts with sustainability brands that generally show “beautiful natural landscapes or doomsday landfill and forest fires”, says May. Through this Burtynsky-inspired style, WRAP can show both in one image.
Muddy greens are commonplace in sustainability communications, but WRAP does the opposite with its palette of fresh blues and greens. The idea was to retain some classic sustainability tropes but reinterpret them, resulting in distinctive pops and surprising tones that reinforce the sense of optimism and determination seen in the rest of the branding.
To align with the bold, straightforward and confident tone of voice, Among Equals went with Marr Sans Condensed for the typeface. “With such a detailed logo and graphic system, the last thing we needed was typography that clashed or overcomplicated things, so we chose something clean, straightforward, but still with enough personality to hold its own,” May explains.
The rollout of WRAP’s new identity reflects its position as a B2B and government-facing brand. It includes all-new website, X, and LinkedIn communications, as well as event and partnership branding elements.
