Designhouse, an established branding and digital agency, has partnered with specialist recruiters, Finatal, to deliver a contemporary and dynamic brand identity.

Founded in 2010, Finatal was created to fill a gap in the private equity sector. Today, Finatal is recognised as a recruitment agency that provides the highest quality finance talent. Despite their success, Finatal has struggled in developing their brand to have a standout identity.

Designhouse was commissioned to refresh Finatal’s brand identity. Market research indicated that Finatal was seen as young and energetic, contrasting the incumbents in the recruitment industry. Finatal also had both brand recognition and differentiation linked to the colour purple – but not to their logo. Designhouse worked closely with Finatal to evolve the brand, with the aim of developing a distinctive identity that is both sophisticated and stays true to Finatal’s dynamic and energetic edge.

Designhouse’s creative solution included developing a dynamic gradient to the purple, making the look and feel of the brand more visually engaging whilst protecting the existing colour differentiation of the brand. An integral piece of the new identity is the new logo, a contemporary wordmark with a bespoke F. The dynamic F was created as a versatile and instantly recognisable feature of the brand which can be used widely across the company and their assets. It can also be used independently as a monogram and is a diverse feature that is synonymous with Finatal. The new brand also utilises a graphic ‘ribbon’ device which acts as a flexible brand asset to link all communication material. The new strapline – ‘Perfectly Placed,’ reflects the dual benefit of Finatal being partner of choice and delivering quality candidates.

David Rooney, Founder and CEO at Finatal, commented “I am delighted with the work done by the Designhouse team and the end result. Look forward to getting it out there and working with it over the coming years!”

Lavinia Culverhouse, CEO at Designhouse, commented “Despite Finatal recognising that the brand needed to evolve to reflect a more mature positioning for them to compete more successfully internationally. Our client was apprehensive to change, fearing that they would lose what made them different and helped drive their success. We worked closely with Finatal to evolve the brand, respecting their past and building on this to form a distinctive identity that adds gravitas yet retains the good bits!”

In addition to these core assets, to comprehensively bring the new identity to life, Designhouse also created a suite of iconography, sales materials, as well as document and social media templates to maintain brand consistency.