Place2Be is a children’s mental health charity providing support to schools with the core belief that children and young people should not have to face mental health problems alone. When we partnered with the team to create an identity for their upcoming charity fundraising event, “The Arts & Minds Gala”, which aimed at building awareness around mental health and what the power of art can do in helping children explore their thoughts around the subject matter, we knew our design system had to both reflect this purpose whilst also drawing inspiration from the venue and paying homage to the award-winning space the gala would occupy. Our challenge was to translate Place2Be’s core vision in using creative expression and play, to openly talk about mental health across a flexible identity system that would also draw reference from the inspiring space the gala was hosted in. We identified the key idea of art being able to open minds as the central statement for the identity.
The design system communicates art as a form of expression to talk about mental health, using typography as the main storytelling tool. The ‘M’, representing the mind, serves as a hero asset that can flex to hold any artistic expression, represented by the ‘A’. We created a suite of different ‘A’s’ to reflect the endless individual expressions that art can be, whilst the ‘M’ monogram pays tribute to the RIBA building typography and brings the venue to life in the design. Together, the ‘A’ and ‘M’ lockup defines the entire identity and translates the idea that being exposed to different forms of art and disciplines opens and broadens your mind.