PA Corporate Identity

PA Consulting (PA) needed a visual identity that exemplified its brand purpose: ‘the power of ingenuity to build a positive human future’. Starting in January 2022, PA’s in-house Design Studio worked in sprints, delivering elements on a just-in-time basis to meet the milestones of a website transformation that ran on a parallel track towards the October deadline.
PA has hundreds of designers, scientists, and engineers, so our team needed to impress from the start, as we sought to engage expert stakeholders with regular feedback sessions.
Strategy
1. We cut-out three designers from our studio of 17 to focus on the project, and backfilled with freelancers.
2. We agreed a brief, clear on what success would look like, : Aspirational – reflect PA's design-centric credentials, including the highest levels of accessibility; Authentic – true to purpose and values.
3. To keep to the website timetable, we planned a series of sprints, reviewing elements in our branding toolkit in order of priority: Colour; Typography; Logo; etc.
4. We set-up regular feedback sessions with stakeholders from around the business. It was vital input was gathered in a timely way; not just as a tick-box exercise. And when we chose a different direction – we made sure to explain why.
5. We built guidelines and templates as we went along.
6. As elements were approved, they were briefed into the web programme. This then became a collaborative partnership, where learnings from one stream would feed into the other.
7. An implementation phase (including comms): garnered support from the whole team.
Feedback from an key internal stakeholder:
"PA's new identity and website are more than a refresh of the brand – they represent a pivotal milestone in PA's legacy – a steppingstone in the journey of what PA is set to become. Today, PA is not known for design. Despite having incredible, world-class teams creating magnificent new experiences for our clients, design is not what people associate with PA – yet. This new identity is the point toward defining a new era of what design can achieve."