Baigent Digital unlocks branding potential of Prison Reform Trust while working on website update

The PRT approached Baigent at the beginning of this year after the consultancy worked on the charity’s original website.

A brief was established to revamp the website, but Baigent questioned the brand before starting the digital project, according to Baigent creative director Steven Ramsay.

Baigent worked with PRT trustees to evaluate the current branding and was tasked to create a logo that emphasised reform ’with clarity and no fluffiness’, says Ramsay.

PRT head of policy and communications Mark Day says, ’We wanted a logo that reflected our values. It needed to have substance and be purposeful. As we work for social change it had to be serious, but with a more modern look.’

The logo features a red rectangle filled and a Helvetica Neue font, with the word ’reform’ in bold. It will be used on print communications, stationery, publications, letterhead, business cards and online.

Day says, ’Prison is definitely an issue that involves thought about how to present the arguments and what we do. The logo had to reflect that serious intent.’

Ramsay adds, ’With the media coverage that the charity gets it wanted to approach the project with kid gloves rather than just give it a crazy logo.’

The website, due to launch in the autumn, is image-led and features the work of photographer Edmund Clark. Clark was commissioned by PRT to produce images for its reports, but Baigent felt that the images should be brought to the foreground, says Ramsay.

He says, ’The PRT was worried about the digital execution of the brand [and] how to translate clarity through a website when there’s so much going on. Edmund’s work is a fantastic visual representation of prison – raw, real and fascinating.’

Clark says, ’I was interested in how the spaces and details of the wing reflected the prisoners’ states of mind, the nature of long-term incarceration and the impact of the disorder of ageing on an ordered custodial environment.’