Design Council, Design Support Programmes

Communicating real results

Fiona has worked with the Design Council for the last ten years as both branding consultant on programmes, workshop associate and she also went client side to lead on the re-branding of the Design Support Programmes.

Challenge: Communicating the benefits

The Design Council offers Design Support Programmes to business, public sector and university clients. The programmes needed to make the transition from being fully funded to being partly paid for by participants. So the benefits of joining needed to be more strongly communicated.

To support this a national evaluation of the programme was commissioned which demonstrated that businesses had on average a £20+ return on investment for every £1 spent on design.

Solution: The difference is design

Fiona led the re-branding of the programmes client side, running a branding workshop to define the branding direction and developing the implementation brief. After a pitch, design agencyTrue North were appointed to develop the identity and campaign.

Following research and consultation a campaign was created with the central idea ‘The difference is design’. The campaign uses an arrow device to highlight the impact design has made. This has been taken through to case studies, brochure, website and promotional material.

Result: Effective programme engagement

The Design Council team have found the campaign an effective way to engage with audiences and recruit clients. The use of ‘The difference is design’ has now been extended as a slogan to all the Design Council’s services.

“Fiona has worked with the Design Council for the past 10 years, providing leading edge brand strategy for businesses on our design support programmes, as well as delivering workshops and branding for the Design Council’s Design Leadership Programme. She’s a pleasure to work with and have as part of our wider team of Associates. Her work has led to tangible, real results and business growth for our clients.”

Ellie Runcie, Director, Futures Programmes, Design Council