We’re delighted to share that we’re re-branding for the first time in over 12 years. Since our Directors took over the business in 2019, things have changed around here. We’ve grown and evolved as a business, we’ve moved to our new studio at Darley Abbey Mills and we generally just do things a bit differently now. Our existing branding no longer reflects who we are, so, for the last few months, we’ve been working on a complete re-brand.
We wanted to create something which visually represents our company vision: “A team of visionaries creating & delivering mind-blowing spaces”. And, of course, our new values:
We’re Passionate
We’re Honest
We’re Creative
We’re a Team
We’ve collaborated with our neighbours Karl and the team at Stimulating Minds to create our new brand. We wanted a bold move on from where we currently are . We asked Karl to convey our:
Creativity
Energy
Friendly, relaxed and approachable
Expertise
Modernity
Visionary outlook
And that’s just what they did! For our main brand colour we wanted one which reflects who we are as a business. Our main colour has the modern, creative and friendly feel we wanted to achieve. And our supporting line up gives us some energetic pops to break things up.
Our new font is called Poppins. It’s a contemporary, geometric typeface which has many similarities to the fonts used on some of our early stationery. We love the rounded, friendly and accessible feel it has.
The emblem Karl created for us hints at our MDL nickname and the gradient colour represents our visionary approach. We’re proud of our roots, so you’ll notice that the architecture (no pun intended!) of the logo remains. We hope you agree that this new brand identity embodies who we are today and where we’re heading in the future.
You may also have noticed that we’ve changed how we talk. The formal, traditional (and perhaps a bit stuffy?!) reputation that architects used to have is changing. And it’s certainly not who we are. We pride ourselves on being friendly, approachable and easy to understand – so that’s how we’ll be talking to you from now on.
For the past year or so we’ve worked with local photographer Simon Bernacki to capture both our projects and our people. You’ll see lots of his fantastic images on our brand new website – and keep your eyes peeled for more on our socials too.
We’ve been so excited to share our re-brand with our wonderful team and finally showed them during our team day at Mackworth Farmhouse a couple of weeks ago. We’re so chuffed that they loved it as much as us.
Dean Wain, Senior Architectural Technologist, said: “I think the re-brand is reflective of the shift we have made as a company since the current directors took over. They’ve maintained the friendly feel of MDL but modernised how we work. I know the guys have been working hard on this alongside a million and one other things, and we think it is much more fitting of what we have in place here, so we look forward to sharing it with everyone”.
Alongside our new branding, we’ve got a brand new website! So have a good nosy around while you’re here.
Finally, we want to say a huge thank you to all local businesses who have made this happen – Karl and the Stimulating Minds team for our branding and website, Simon Bernacki, our photographer for the stunning images, Sarah and the team at Twiggs for our fab new PPE and Yvonne at Essential Print Services for our new business cards and stationery. Also, not local to us but another small business which we’ve received such amazing customer service from is Dean and the team at Curious Group for our swanky new notebooks – we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.`