Creating a brand identity for East Midlands Hydrogen

The challenge

We were approached at an exciting time for East Midlands Hydrogen. They were soon to announce the launch of their inland ecosystem of hydrogen production, set to be the UK’s largest inland hydrogen cluster. Working with an impressive array of Midlands-based businesses, this collaboration was set to save at least 1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

They needed marketing and branding collateral to be in place as soon as possible to enable them to start their marketing campaign in earnest. They were starting from scratch and needed a logo, website, bespoke map, infographics, and branding assets including a PowerPoint template, letter template, email headers and footers, vision document and event assets, such as pop-up stands.

D2N2 (the Local Enterprise Partnership for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire) and Cadent (the UK’s largest gas distribution network) were the leading partners in the project and were clear that they wanted the East Midlands Hydrogen branding to be clean, slick, and professional.

Turning instinct into action

Some clients want full brand development support from initial research through name generation to delivery of a brand identity system. For this brief, the name, strategy and branding guardrails had been set, so some elements of a brand and branding strategy could be skipped.

We followed a tried-and-tested process to deliver the activity:

Brand identity components:

• We created a unique and memorable logo that captured the essence of the East Midlands Hydrogen proposition
• We chose a colour scheme that aligned with the brand's personality and evokes the desired emotional response.
• We selected appropriate fonts that reflect the brand's voice and character
• We determined the style of visuals, including illustrations, graphics, and photography, that would be used consistently across brand communications

To support the brand identity, we delivered:

• A set of guidelines for the East Midlands Hydrogen proposition to ensure consistent use of visual elements across different touchpoints
• Supporting brand assets, such as templates for presentations and marketing materials. We ensured that these collateral materials align with the visual identity and maintain visual consistency
• We applied the visual identity to various mockups and real-world scenarios to assess effectiveness and adaptability, including accessibility
• We documented the visual identity guidelines in a comprehensive brand style guide
• We rolled out the visual identity across all brand touchpoints consistently

We also successfully completed the range of marketing assets required, including building the website from scratch utilising our UX design and web development capability, as well as event handout leaflets and pull-up event banners — all within a narrow timeframe of just a few months.

Result

The brief was delivered on time and to a high standard, ready for the East Midlands Hydrogen launch event, where they were joined by their partners, local stakeholders, and Government representatives.