COI roster review adds new talent

An overhaul of the Central Office of Information’s design roster is introducing more than 40 consultancies to the department for the first time, Design Week can exclusively reveal.

The COI is signing off a 64-strong roster of design consultancies to provide services across eight categories. The design and related creative services for print roster has been drawn up over the past nine months to cover all the areas of design implementation required by COI clients.

Previously, the COI ran a ‘one size fits all’ creative services roster, according to COI Publications creative director Fanny Sigler.

The introduction of new categories has broadened the range of consultancies involved, says Sigler. Sixty per cent of groups on the list will be working with the COI for the first time, including Love Creative, Smith & Milton, Enterprise IDU and The Partners. Retained consultancies include Start Creative and Optimism.

Brand guardianship and management, communications audits, contract publishing, image library creation and forms and information design are all introduced as distinct disciplines for the first time. The design roster also covers the creation of corporate identity, corporate literature and promotional literature.

Groups will be shortlisted on a project by project basis, after which they will make credentials presentations. Only in ‘extreme’ circumstances, where a project falls outside the roster categories, will an external consultancy be invited to pitch, explains Sigler.

‘The roster is a lot tighter than we had before, when there were over 100 groups,’ she says. ‘We are looking at our client base needs now and in the future and having the categories makes it clearer.’

Design strategy, rather than implementation, falls under the COI’s new marketing and strategy roster, although there is expected to be a degree of overlap (DW 3 March).

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