Sea rebrands the Mental Health Foundation

Sea Design has rebranded the Mental Health Foundation, creating a new visual identity to be used across all of the organisation’s materials and website.

The consultancy was appointed to the project last March following a credentials pitch. It had previously worked on a small campaign project for the charity.

According to Bryan Edmondson, founder of Sea, ’With Government funding getting more and more competitive, every charity has to look commercially at making their brand work a lot harder.’

Sea worked alongside brand strategist Ralph Ardill and initially audited all the charity’s past communications. It also looked at how the charity’s directorate, the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, could work with the main branch more effectively in communications.

The identity will be used across all touchpoints including online, campaign materials and internal communications. Sea also created a new ’organising thought’, which is ’changing minds’.

Edmondson says, ’It had been positioned as a very colourful charity in all its communications. A lot of charities own different colours – we wanted to avoid that and use something factual, so it’s black and white, simple and direct.’

Sea created a monogram seal marque using a ’very cool’ dark grey colour palette that aims to convey the authority and credibility of the charity.

The consultancy also commissioned a photographic portrait series campaign, shot by Richard Learoyd, to convey the ’human beings’ affected by mental health issues.

Edmondson says, ’Essentially, it is the UK’s number one mental health charity – all the others use its knowledge and research, so it needed that authority.’
The Mental Health Foundation says the new branding and website will launch next Tuesday.