Baigent Digital creates look for Refugee Council project

Baigent was appointed at the end of July following a credentials- and strategy-led tender process that involved seven consultancies.

RIT chose Baigent because of the strength of its preliminary branding ideas and its agile working methods, says RIT information and communications officer Juliette Stevenson.

The consultancy was tasked with creating a fresh feel in the new identity, with a simple colour palette that would be suitable for application on information sheets and reports.

Baigent creative director Steven Ramsay says, ’Refugees into Teaching wanted a consultancy that could breathe life into branding that was a bit heavy for it.’

The project entailed realigning the brand vision to become a bit more friendly and fit in with the Refugee Council’s identity. Ramsay says, ’We didn’t try to mimic the [Refugee Council] identity at all. It’s effective at what it does so we wanted to take the authoritative aspect, but didn’t want to be as hard-edged.’

For the logo, Baigent chose to keep the original green palette as it communicated RIT’s ethos of a natural, friendly and politically neutral organisation, says Ramsay.

According to Ramsay, the challenge was to overcome the potential hostility towards refugees and communicate what RIT does. Baigent chose to do this by using strong photography for both the identity and website, including images of the RIT centre in Brixton and macro shots of refugee teachers. Ramsay says, ’We wanted hands-on, eye-opening imagery – nothing staged.’