ABOUT

In 2021 we were asked to brand and publicise a new Science and Innovation Park being established by The Science Museum at Wroughton, Wiltshire.

This 545-acre multipurpose site is made up of large open areas, native woodlands, runways and one of the UK’s largest solar farms. It is home to The National Collections Centre, homed in a purpose-built cutting edge £40m facility, and hosts research and development projects in collaboration between the Science Museum Group, science, engineering and film industries and academia. Recent examples include testing solar, and wind powered mobile phone technology, TV and filmmaking (it’s been home to The Grand Tour), large-scale smart motorway technology and the ‘Hive’ research space for the built environment with the University of Bath. The work is funded by multiple partners including local councils, the area LEP and also the European Structural and Investment fund. Moving forward there will be multiple opportunities for the public to visit the site, both to see the National Collections Centre itself in its extraordinary new building, for specialist visits to the Science Museum Library and Archive, and for events and exhibitions held by the many partner institutions and businesses who are taking advantage of the new park’s facilities. Our work needed to reflect these multiple audiences.

We began with an interview process with all partners and stakeholders to understand how they envisaged the new brand for the park should be brought to life, and an extensive audit of all existing materials and supporting collateral for the site. It was also important that we reflected the Science Museum Group’s existing branding within our own work, creating tools and assets that allowed us to tell the true story of the new Science and Innovation Park but reflect the relationship between the park and the Science Museum brand. We then developed a new brand mark and identity system for the brand, including fonts and palettes and then developed tools and assets to promote the park, including detailed communications, collateral and brochures for each of the four key sectors being targeted for investment, plus one for the park overall, as well as digital assets and templates. The development process included all the partners in the project, asking all to sign off each stage of creative development so that everyone felt comfortable with the end result. We then developed templates and assets for the new brand, including artwork which was made freely available to all partners to employ appropriately in their own campaigns to promote the site. We also developed guidance for how the new design system should be used, again liaising closely with the Science Museum group team including their internal design studio, to ensure our work matched their own brand guidance without compromising the new identity of the Science and Innovation Park.