Freelancer organisation IPSE launches new identity

IPSE was set up in 1999 as membership body the Professional Contractors Group. Since then it has aimed to broaden its appeal to self-employed and freelance workers across all industries. It currently has nearly 22 000 members.

IPSE’s in-house design team worked with Saatchi Masius to create the new identity.

Owen Thomas, art director at IPSE, says, ‘Our intention is to broaden our appeal and represent more people. With Saatchi Masius we had a process of looking at who we represent and what would work best for them.’

Thomas says the IPSE wordmark uses italics to separate ‘independent professionals’ and ‘self-employed’. He adds that ipse is Latin for ‘oneself’ and that the italics help to indicate the correct pronunciation of this word (‘ip-say’).

For the colour scheme, IPSE uses a palette including red, green and purple. Thomas says, ‘We do a lot of work with Government, so we need to avoid colours that have political affiliations.’

Thomas says IPSE has commissioned photography of individual members and that it will also be looking at ‘macro-photography’ to represent different industries.

IPSE says there are currently 4.59 million self-employed people in the UK.

Ipse chief executive Chris Bryce says, ‘Self-employment is the zeitgeist. It has grown by an astonishing 39 per cent since 2000 and has outstripped growth in traditional employment by three to one in the last decade.’