Rank & File
I worked in a group to rebrand Rank & File, a Reading-based Theatre of Sanctuary that works with refugees, abuse survivors, and people with disabilities, using theatre to inspire social change. As a team we created a full brand identity and proposed its use across a variety of the organisations assets.
CLIENT
Rank & File
DELIVERABLES
Full brand Package
YEAR
2025
SCOPE
Branding designer
Process
As a team, we began with in-depth client research, developing new vision and mission statements, defining core values, and identifying Rank & File’s brand archetype as ‘The Creator’, with ‘Caregiver’ and ‘Everyman’ as secondary traits.
In the ideation stage, we each explored multiple creative directions before collectively deciding to progress with my concept – an expressive ampersand as the visual anchor for the brand. The ampersand’s role in connecting words mirrored Rank & File’s mission of bringing people together. I developed this into a dynamic, hand-rendered mark, exploring typography, colour, and graphic applications that reflected the organisation’s creativity, warmth, and drive for social change.
Outcome
The final proposal established a full brand package, with variations for different formats and an ampersand-only mark for small-scale use. The ampersand was also developed as a graphic device, acting as an image container to foreground the people of Rank & File while keeping the brand instantly recognisable.
We decided colour palette on a bold colour pallete reflecting the radical social change desired by the organisation, while the typography paired bold sans-serif headlines with friendly handwritten subheadings provided clean, legible body text, and reflected values of inclusivity.
Applied consistently across business cards, event leaflets, social media assets, a reskinned website, and conceptual event branding, the rebrand presented Rank & File as both a safe, welcoming community and a bold advocate for social change, giving the organisation a distinctive, memorable identity ready for implementation.
