SomeOne founding partner Simon Manchipp delves into their recent project with the Motability Scheme, explaining why brands in this sector need to change.
Nowadays, there’s no excuse for brands and services to be inaccessible with so many tools at their disposal to ensure otherwise. Equally, there’s no reason to ‘play it safe’ and compromise on visual appeal.
SomeOne has proved that accessibility and aesthetic can coexist in its latest work for The Motability Scheme, which has helped anyone with a qualifying mobility allowance in the UK to get moving for the last 45 years. The scheme is delivered by commercial organisation Motability Operations – the UK’s largest car leasing company – and offers everything from cars to Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAVs), scooters, and powered wheelchairs.
Most recently, the service has begun providing extensive support for its new range of electric vehicles (EVs), including standard home charge point installations and help to access the public charging infrastructure. Beyond helping people get a new vehicle, the Scheme also provides access to a comprehensive leasing package with insurance, breakdown cover, servicing, and maintenance, offering customers great value for money and peace of mind.
Despite this amazing offer, the problem was that very few people who could benefit from it knew about it. To rectify this, SomeOne was brought on board to review and update the brand to better engage with disabled people across the UK, according to the studio’s founding partner, Simon Manchipp.
He says: “It was clear that the new branding work needed to create ways to better explain the Scheme’s full offering, making it more representative, positive, and straightforward.
“This created an interesting challenge: how to improve every aspect of the brand experience for its diverse audience.”
To gain valuable insight that would inspire and inform the design work, SomeOne conducted research groups, interviews, consultations, and meetings with members of the disabled community. These sessions revealed the need for nuance and flexibility in online readability and accessibility and how disabled people should be depicted in photography, and they influenced the studio’s approach to typography, iconography, and illustration.
When trying to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidance (WCAG) AAA standards, many brands default to high-contrast colour systems in a bid to improve readability and legibility. But, Manchipp believes that “while black and white offers maximum readability, it’s not always visually engaging”.
With this in mind, SomeOne sought to achieve high levels of accessibility with high levels of visual interest for the Motability Scheme.
Maintaining efficiency to reach audiences of all physical and cognitive abilities was a core objective, as was ensuring that the Motability Scheme branding stood apart from Motability Foundation and Motability Operations. That being said, it still had to feel like “part of the same family,” says Manchipp.
He explains that the studio also wanted to “reflect the brand’s mission in a more contemporary, relevant, and approachable way”, creating space for dialogue around the shift to EVs and digital services. Making the design “striking, not stark”, he adds, opened the door for more people to access the Motability Scheme easily and quickly.
According to customer feedback, the scheme’s old logo was causing some confusion and had been interpreted as a sun, a flower, petals, an abstract shape, and more. “While not harmful, these interpretations didn’t effectively tell the Motability Scheme story or convey the services offered, and the logo also struggled in smaller or digital applications,” says Manchipp.
Derived from the letter ‘M’ in the wordmark, the brand’s new round wheel symbols clearly reference the brand’s purpose of supplying wheeled vehicles and conveying freedom of movement. Not only this, but Manchipp says, “it’s far easier to apply across all media”.
SomeOne also worked closely with members of the disabled community to develop a set of icons designed to help users navigate products and services quickly, easily, and clearly. Manchipp rationalises that “with many vehicle options available, a long list of text can be overwhelming, while an interactive icon is easier to navigate”.
While it’s true that people can most easily read typefaces that are familiar, some fonts lack distinctive visual cues. For example, sometimes the number one (1) cannot be differentiated from the lowercase letter ‘L’ (‘l’).
To avoid confusion, SomeOne developed a new, easy-to-read typeface for maximum readability across everything from print to posters and digital displays. “Because a lot of reading is contextual, as we read word shapes more than individual letters, we redesigned the Motability Scheme typeface to include as many visual cues as possible, making it easy to read for the widest audience,” Manchipp explains.
The colour palette has also been optimised for accessibility by retaining the Motability Scheme blue but introducing more combinations, hues, and saturations. According to Manchipp, “a more vibrant palette, joined by a wider spectrum of colours, enhances the customer journey in both digital and physical spaces and highlights the new developments in EVs”.
Since the scheme is all about keeping people moving, it made sense to integrate the semiotics of travel into the design system, with elements like journey lines, compasses, navigation markers, and location pins. Manchipp says: “Just as they are useful in mapping, they are useful in design, underlining key phrases, pointing to better options, and highlighting destinations”.
He reinforces that quality was just as important as functionality with this project, as the disabled community has been “patronised and underserved by lacklustre work that demonstrates a total lack of care and respect” for years.
“If you look at a £5k bicycle, you are met by stunning photography, slick copywriting, and film that tell a story and engaging concepts, whereas, if you buy a £5k wheelchair, you are faced with a poorly photographed image of the chair on a white background with a functional description.”
Easy-to-read stickers now appear throughout communications, designed to match the new Motability Scheme’ M’ and highlight key information. Manchipp describes them as “fun, light-hearted, and charming,” explaining how text on a solid sticker background is far easier to read than text superimposed on a photo.
Photography centres around and celebrates Motability Scheme customers, showing people enjoying newfound freedoms and not just focusing on the vehicles. This aligns with the overarching goal of building an accessible brand that truly represents all disabilities and a diverse customer base.
