ABOUT

The Brief –
The Mammal Society is a team dedicated to science-led mammal conservation who have been protecting and restoring British mammal populations for 70 years.

They run National Mammal Week, a week-long celebration of Britain’s mammals and period of activity, where the conservation sector, volunteers and nature-lovers come together to celebrate these extraordinary creatures and raise awareness about their conservation.

Through a series of engaging events, educational activities, and community initiatives, National Mammal Week offers a unique opportunity to learn about the importance of mammalian biodiversity and is a call to action for everyone to participate in achieving their preservation.

The Mammal Society needed our help bringing National Mammal Week to life to spread further awareness and a brand new campaign identity that encouraged participation and action.

Concept –
The design needed to be eyecatching in order to appeal to the general online and convey a sense of urgency.

We were also told that the theme for this year’s Week is ‘Where the Wild Things Should Be’ so the idea of encouraging the restoration of natural habitats, especially in urban areas, needed to come through in the design too. Therefore, we needed to create an overarching design that can be used annually and a design that was specific to the 2025 theme.

The target audience for this year is non-nature lovers i.e. urban dwellers as well as families and parents whose main motivator is ensuring a positive future for their children – thus hope for the future and leaving a better world behind.

Execution –
We started with an inquisition phase where we conducted research on similar campaigns and an audit of The Mammal’s Society’s assets including their current branding and previous National Mammal Week assets. We also spoke to members of the Mammal Society team to find out the direction they desired.

After a few rounds of concepting, we landed on the final design system. Our aim was to break-away from the typical soft greens and neutrals commonly seen in nature-themed projects. We combined vibrant pinks, blues and greens with deeper jewel tones, creating a bold and impactful design system.

We implemented graphic shapes as a key element of the campaign identity. These were inspired by the footprints of common UK mammals and abstracted to follow a clean and geometric visual style. These dynamic graphic shapes are utilised throughout the campaign assets as containers for imagery and text.

We also designed assets specific to the 2025 theme which makes use of the overarching design system but brings in bespoke illustrations of UK-based mammals. These have been designed to work cohesively with real-life UK landscapes and allude to the idea of placing the wild things back where they should be.

We designed a campaign identity, including a custom campaign mark and comprehensive guidelines. We also created social media and poster templates in order for them to design assets themselves and share with members to do the same.

Results –
The Mammal Society team were delighted with the campaign identity and flexibility of the design system. They’ve already begun to design and post the assets across their digital channels and will be making more use of it when National Mammal Week takes place during the 21st–27th April.