British Council set to unveil rebrand

The British Council is close to unveiling a revamped identity, which has been designed by Citigate Lloyd Northover in conjunction with the organisation’s in-house team.

The revamp is understood to be an ‘evolution’ of the British Council’s existing identity and involves some work on sub-branding issues in relation to the use of the marque by the organisation’s overseas offices.

The British Council head of communications Christopher Wade is heading up the project.

CLN vice-chairman Jim Northover says, ‘[Much of] our thinking is being done on a consultative basis and this is [now] being implemented internally.’

Asked whether the revamp includes any name change, Northover says there is ‘nothing significant’. Any changes will be at the level of the sub-brands of overseas offices, he adds.

CLN has also conducted a review of the British Council’s Web strategy, which is being taken forward by another consultancy, AKQA.

AKQA’s brief involves the development of Web templates and a navigation system that can be implemented on all the British Council’s sites worldwide.

AKQA was appointed in November last year and the project budget for the website work is understood to be £1m with design commanding a six-figure fee (DW 8 November 2001).

The British Council plays a key role in promoting British design work in overseas markets and organises around half a dozen travelling exhibitions each year. These initiatives are co-ordinated by the British Council’s head of design promotion Emily Campbell.

Its touring shows over the past year include ReDesign, which focused on the UK’s achievements in sustainable design and visited China and Kenya (DW 1 November 2001), and The Book Corner, an exhibition of print work that ran last month in Milan (DW 8 March 2002).