A long time ago, last century, on 21 November 1989 to be exact, I received a 7-page brief for the ‘development of corporate identity for Highlands and Islands Enterprise and for a unified branding structure’. No mean task! We’d be pitching against fellow corporate identity specialists McIlroy Coates and Scott Stern, amongst others.
The brief stated that the new identity had to be 1) modern, dynamic, innovative, forward looking; 2) professional, businesslike, efficient but sympathetic and caring; 3) closely identified with the Highlands and Islands; 4) in touch with centres of activity and influence in Scotland, UK and internationally; and 5) ozone friendly, environmentally sensitive ie. takes a balanced view of development and conservation. Well, that should be easy then!
Both Scottish Enterprise and its sister organisation in the Highlands and Islands were to launch in 1991. To cut a long story short, we won the pitch with a strong presentation to the board in Inverness, but not before the logo was put out to research to confirm its wider acceptance. It passed with flying colours.
Having had the main HIE logo accepted, we had then to meet with all nine Local Enterprise Companies in the Highlands and Islands to discuss and agree briefs for each of their own individual identities, while keeping them within a ‘unified branding structure’.
So with cases (and golf bags) packed, Richard Gourlay and I ventured northwards to meet with all the local boards. Thankfully, all of them liked our HIE identity and were happy to adopt the ‘family look’. Several months later, and nine presentations later, we rolled out the full identity programme.
For the next few years, Baillie Marshall was responsible for all the design and advertising for HIE, across industrial development, product marketing, training and tourism.
Directly below is the original HIDB logo, our starting point, and for those of you who may be interested in reading the actual brief and understanding my handwritten design rationale and logo development, I also attach these below, along with a small selection of logos presented by other design agencies (but, for obvious reasons, I have omitted their names). These are followed by the independent research results that provided overwhelming public support for our newly created HIE identity.
So what did the other design agencies come up with?
And our solution:
And the positive research:
Today, the HIE logo survives, having only recently been minimally altered after the centralisation of the agency’s activities. You can see this at http://www.avian.co.uk/Marketing/Brand/HIE, but please note that Avian’s text (below) is obviously misleading as “the original brand structure and suite of identities” were all done in 1989/90 (as clearly shown on the brief above) and it was developed by Baillie Marshall (not Avian), nor did the design of the identity involve any creative member currently at Avian. Maybe they should reconsider that particular paragraph.