Halifax gets a new brand to keep up with digital banks

The 166-year-old high street bank has been given a new visual identity by Rufus Leonard, which aims to “declutter” the brand and help it appeal to younger people.

Banking chain Halifax has been rebranded by Rufus Leonard, in a bid to help it compete with digital banks and fintech brands like Monzo and Starling, while attracting a younger audience.

The studio has created a new logo and wider visual identity for the bank, while advertising agency Adam&EveDBB has created a new advert, which celebrates the bank’s mortgage offerings for home buyers.

Halifax’s new brand strategy is based around “fintech meets humanity”, says Carlo D’Alanno, executive creative director at Rufus Leonard, which has drawn inspiration from the “straightforward and simple” feel of financial technology brands.

The refreshed Halifax logo retains the brand’s “X” symbol, but includes a new, bespoke logotype, as well as a redesigned “X” that is now filled-in rather than striped with horizontal lines. The new typeface is less bold, with thinner letterforms and smaller kerning, while the new “X” is also thinner and slightly elongated.

The logo keeps the brand’s blue but has incorporated a wider core palette of dark blue and white, which are used interchangeably.

A secondary palette of green, yellow and pink has been incorporated into the wider visual identity, across print and digital communications, while people photography and a new suite of line-drawn icons referencing different Halifax services also features, such as a key symbol to represent mortgages and a wrench symbol to reference help settings. A free, Adobe typeface, Source Sans, has been used for body copy across communications.

The aim was to “declutter” the brand, making it more “utilitarian” and “digital first”, says D’Alanno.

“We wanted it to be warm and colourful, while still being true to the brand’s blue,” he says. “The horizontal lines in the logo were not robust in a digital space, they just got obliterated and were not strong or powerful. We removed the lines, generally decluttered and simplified the identity with flatness to help make it modern, clean and less fussy.”

The photography focuses on humans to show the “range of emotions” people feel when using the banking service, says D’Alanno.

 

Adam&EveDBB’s new ad takes a jovial and funny tone, featuring a slinky toy celebrating its new home to the soundtrack of Kool and the Gang’s Jungle Boogie.

It does away with Halifax’s previous style of incorporating classic animated characters into its adverts, such as The Thunderbirds and Top Cat, as customer research showed that they had “lost their relevance”, says D’Alanno.

The new identity and campaign hope to attract a wider audience, says D’Alanno, and compete with younger start-up brands.

halifax logos

“Halifax has a broad audience, from couples who are first-time house buyers, to people who are already asset-rich,” says D’Alanno. “We wanted to make the brand appeal to younger people, without excluding the older demographic.

“It is absolutely trying to compete with fintech brands,” he adds. “Halifax is trying to [adopt principles] of brands like Monzo, which are simplicity, ease of use and straightforward-ness. The idea is to make sure the service comes first, and the bank comes second.”

Digital banks such as Monzo offer customers services such as fee-free spending abroad, budgeting tools that help users manage monthly spending between different life areas such as groceries, drinking and eating out, and summary infographics showing where users have spent their money in a digestible, infographic format.

D’Alanno says that Halifax wants to show it is now “doing things that fintechs are doing”, including “straightforward” services such as the ability to temporarily freeze rather than cancel a bank card, contactless payments, and allowing customers to pay in a cheque via the mobile banking app, adding that the brand hopes to branch out into more “digital-first” features in future.

“It’s on the table to take on features [such as budgeting and spend tracking],” he says. “The ambition for Halifax is to move into that space, while also having the big bank resources and customer base that start-up digital banks don’t have.”

He adds that the new identity aims to humanise Halifax, and through using softer colours, flatter graphics and people photography, help it appear “more honest and democratic”, and enable it to stand out from high-street competitor banks such as Natwest, Santander and Barclays. “We want to make it feel less like an institution and more a bank of choice that is easy to engage with,” he says.

Halifax’s new branding and ad campaign is currently rolling out across all touchpoints, including the website and app, in-store signage, and print and marketing materials. The project took Rufus Leonard four months to complete and is on-going.

The design studio has worked with Lloyds Bank, the parent company of Halifax, for 25 years, and gave Lloyds a new brand identity six years ago.

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Comments
  • J April 10, 2019 at 5:14 pm

    Just a question.. the letter ‘A’ and ‘X’ touching one another, is that on purpose? as I see the spacing between the other letters are all equal.

  • CG April 11, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Given how identity and application is all over the place, I would say yes.

  • J April 12, 2019 at 4:44 am

    Source Sans isn’t a free, Google typeface. It’s a free, Adobe typeface.

    • Sarah Dawood April 12, 2019 at 11:57 am

      Hello,

      I’ve amended this now.

      Thanks,
      Sarah

  • Wil April 12, 2019 at 2:28 pm

    The aim was to “declutter” the brand, making it more “utilitarian” and “digital first”, says D’Alanno.

    I think they’ve misunderstood what Digital First means.

  • Mr Monzo April 12, 2019 at 3:06 pm

    Did you get inspired for the UI by Monzo?

  • Outrageous April 12, 2019 at 5:56 pm
  • Love April 12, 2019 at 6:47 pm

    This is really sloppy work

  • Matt April 13, 2019 at 10:59 am

    I fail to see how the kerning inconsistencies could be intentional- ie between the I and the F, aside from the A and X. Just looks like bad design, the gap between the I and F is massive compared to the L and I. just looks like bad type setting

  • neil whitehead April 13, 2019 at 5:28 pm

    How dull and boring is this? Terrible Typography.

  • Martin Bodger April 15, 2019 at 3:16 pm

    Ah, blanding at it’s finest.

    This needs to stop.

  • Des Trainor April 16, 2019 at 8:52 am

    I would go into a branch and complain about this but I can’t seem to find one anymore…!

  • Brian Eggs April 16, 2019 at 4:44 pm

    All of the comments above have reminded me why I stopped reading the comments on design week.

  • James April 17, 2019 at 3:20 am

    “doing things that fintechs are doing” Really sad to see the brand turn into a me too experience. Pretty sloppy, snoozy work. Compared to TSB and how they evolved this is poor.

  • DeviantArt October 27, 2019 at 10:08 pm

    …but haven’t reminded you why you keep still reading.

  • Mike Young May 12, 2020 at 4:21 pm

    Loved the previous comment ‘Bland design’. I had a communication from the Halifax the other day, it didn’t have the dual colour logo, just the blue and the really dull font… yawn! Would love to know how much this rebrand cost too.

  • Julian Clark November 7, 2020 at 12:12 pm

    Only just noticed they’ve rebranded! Says it all. When you’re first criteria is lets look at what the competition have done, you’re already doomed. But then to see that and forget is even worse. Boring typography, limp colour palette. Oh and Monzo aren’t even cutting edge in banking terms.

  • Jules February 19, 2021 at 11:07 am

    Why do Designers always tell us what “we” want ?
    e.g. “Declutter” ??
    How were the horizontal lines in the previous X “clutter” ?
    To many those lines suggest “craftsmanship and attention to detail”.

    MInimalist, flat design like this new Halifax logo suggests laziness and disrespect to Customers.
    ….not forgetting dull, boring, indistinct.

    The Designer claims this is “utilitarian”.
    In what universe is “blending in to the background” helpful ? i.e. of utility ???

    How did Marks & Spencers, Next, House of Fraser, Debenhams all end up with black text – when previously one was green, another blue ?
    People might have been forgiven for thinking they were in the same group….

    Designers …….meh !
    They’ve been trying to push lazy, minimalism on us for nearly a century.
    Sadly it seems to be taking hold.

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