Love Camden, a project of Camden Council, exists to promote the borough’s cultural offering by providing a guide to Camden’s finest institutions, active organisations and exciting events. They needed a new brand and a new website which would be capable of shaking off old associations and communicating the full spectrum of Camden’s cultural attractions.

What we did

We kicked off the rebranding exercise with an in-depth discovery phase, working with the Love Camden team to develop a deep understanding of the key audiences and stakeholders – including residents, students, businesses, institutions and the council itself – and their needs.

Together we came up with a vision for a new brand and website that would promote Camden’s cultural offer, maximise financial opportunities, drive users to take action and provide a flexible framework for future development.

We then embarked upon a round of creative work to find the underpinnings of a bold new brand, one based on the values of radicalism, curiosity, innovation and freedom, and one which would demonstrate the diversity of a borough which is home to not only Camden Town but also Hampstead, Bloomsbury, the British Museum, Kings Cross and Highgate.

Armed with a new logo, typefaces, style guide and original photography we then set out to build a website which would be both a bold vehicle for the borough’s best stories and a guide to Camden authored by the residents, cultural institutions, businesses and local authority staff who live and work there.

How it went

The new brand provides a bold and distinct visual identity which manages to trace a common thread through the borough’s varied and diverse cultural offerings without forcing them all to conform to a restricting and stifling masterbrand. It radically departs from the old branding, which conformed to well-known tourist industry tropes, providing a window through which to discover and share authentic stories told by the borough’s inhabitants.

The website harnesses the user-friendly features of the Drupal 8 content management system and a bold yet simple set of visual guidelines to realise the brand vision, shining a spotlight on the borough’s best stories and contributed content. It also makes it simple and straightforward to publish user generated content, ensuring that event, organisation and venue listings remain up to date and relevant.

Since launching in November 2016, the website has seen dramatically improved user engagement. In the first two months, visitors spent nearly twice as long on the site and viewed 37% more pages than compared to the same period in 2015. They were also 48% less likely to leave the site after viewing a single page.

What this means for your project

By focusing on the needs of your users and stakeholders, both internal and external, we’re able to strip away extraneous information and get to the core of how value is created for your organisation. With this insight we’ll help you build a brand that taps into the passions of your audiences and build digital solutions that promote user engagement and provide a framework for growth.