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BRANDING

BRANDING

Rebuilding the Nation’s Refugee Charity

Rebuilding the Nation’s Refugee Charity

The Refugee Council has been supporting refugees in Britain since the Second World War. You’d think they would feel like part of the furniture. And yet, until recently, most people didn’t even realise they were a charity.

So I worked with the Refugee Council, my team at Shape History and – crucially – refugees themselves to craft a brand that felt as at home in Britain as refugees should be.

My role was to come up with a platform for the brand that could hold a complex set of tensions, and then to articulate that both verbally and with a meaningful, distinctive visual style. I also ended up going on to illustrate the brand… but more on that later.

The Refugee Council has been supporting refugees in Britain since the Second World War. You’d think they would feel like part of the furniture. And yet, until recently, most people didn’t even realise they were a charity.

So I worked with the Refugee Council, my team at Shape History and – crucially – refugees themselves to craft a brand that felt as at home in Britain as refugees should be.

My role was to come up with a platform for the brand that could hold a complex set of tensions, and then to articulate that both verbally and with a meaningful, distinctive visual style. I also ended up going on to illustrate the brand… but more on that later.

The Strategy

We repositioned the Refugee Council around what it uniquely offers: decades of expertise supporting refugees to rebuild their lives, as well as standing up for them in society. Grounded in its post-war heritage and shaped through co-creation with refugees, the strategy defines a space that holds this complexity – combining frontline humanity with the credibility to challenge systems and shape public debate. The result is a brand built to feel empathetic, authoritative and distinctly British, while staying true to the lived realities it represents.

The Platform

At the heart of the brand is a defining attitude of ‘grit and grace’. It captures the organisation’s duality – strength and compassion, resilience and humanity – creating space for both hardship and hope, and shaping a voice that can flex to different contexts whilst always remaining deeply human.

The Visual Concept

Inspired by linocut printing, the identity expresses this duality through contrast, literally carving light from darkness. The process, texture and imperfections reflect both the resilience of refugee experiences and the effort behind meaningful change, creating a system that feels human, expressive and real. It also felt stylistically in-keeping with the heritage of the brand, and had the immediately charitable feel needed to communicate that they are not in fact a council!

Lino printing workshops for refugees

Lino printing workshops for refugees

illustrations by yours truly

illustrations by yours truly

a hand-cut-and-printed signature font

a hand-cut-and-printed signature font

The Refugee Council now shows up with a clarity and confidence it didn’t have before – a brand that feels immediately recognisable, both as a charity and as a voice in the national conversation. It holds its ground, able to speak with authority when it needs to challenge, and with warmth when it needs to connect.

Just as importantly, it feels human. Built with refugees, not just for them, the identity creates space for real stories to be seen and heard, full of texture, contradiction and life. The result is a brand that doesn’t simplify the truth, but makes it easier for people to understand, engage with, and believe in.