Refugee Council
Visual identity + Corporate rebranding
The Refugee Council has been supporting refugees in Britain since WWII. But the average Brit didn’t even know they were a charity. So we worked with Refugee Council and – most importantly – refugees themselves, to craft a brand that felt as at home in Britain as refugees should be.
I worked on developing a visual identity that steered RC from looking and feeling corporate to feeling approachable yet trusted. With my team, we completely overhauled their branding, introducing a new logo and working directly with refugees to create lino printed artwork that told their story.
A personal highlight for me was creating a bespoke typeface by hand!
Years
2024-2025
Collaborators
Visual identity: Zoë Dawson, Anya Parakh
Verbal identity: Sachi Gamage, Lou Cowley, Ayesha Gardiner
Accounts: Lauren Kay-Lambert
The Refugee Council was commonly mistaken as a government organisation because of its name. But the name carried too much weight and recognition to be changed. So our challenge was to make Britain know that the Refugee Council is actually a charity. It started with a change in strapline accompanying its legacy name: the Nation's Refugee Charity.
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Refugee Council's former branding leaned towards the more formal side of their work and it didn't show the warmth and joy found at the heart of their organisation.
The new brand we created needed to communicate their work as a charity. It needed to be approachable to both refugees and British donors.
We involved refugees and persuadable Brits throughout the process, co-creating the brand through research and feedback, and using their insights to develop a clear, inclusive identity that made complex issues accessible without losing depth. The result:
At the core of this new brand is grit and grace—an oxymoron that reflects the complex reality of refugees and the Refugee Council’s mission. Their stories are filled with both hardship and hope, darkness and light, kindness and fierce determination.
This concept was translated into a visual identity created through lino printing. By cutting relief into a hard surface, the printing process reveals the light in the dark. Every hard, straight line has a curve to it, and every curve has sharp edges, forcing you to see the joy in the imperfection.
Linocut printing is hard work and it takes time – a reflection of the determination that goes into creating a Britain where refugees can rebuild their lives.
We worked with refugees to create their own lino print illustrations that represent their experiences, which are featured in the new brand’s bank of illustrations.
This type of co-creation was a powerful way to authentically put marginalised voices at the very heart of their new brand. The artwork made by refugees became an integral part of the identity.
The art of lino printing even made its way into the brand's typography. The ‘Grit and Grace’ typeface was hand-cut into lino, printed, scanned, and digitised – ensuring accessibility.
The rough and imperfect typeface gave Refugee Council a bespoke font that carries real texture and a literal human touch.
As the Nation's Refugee Charity, the illustration bank we created represented British-isms that refugees suggested as a portrayal of their new-found homes in Britain. Sayings like "come rain or shine" or "let's have a cuppa" were recurring themes we visualised throughout assets.
