✱ Minority Business MattersSocial ImpactLondon

A free programme that had to look like it was worth paying for.

Brand identity, campaign and social system for a business support programme delivered in partnership with the Mayor of London.

ClientMinority Business Matters

SectorPublic Sector · Social Impact

DisciplineBrand Identity · Campaign

PartnersMayor of London

Of the UK’s 6 million businesses are ethnic minority owned

£74bn

Contributed to the UK economy

£18.5bn

Foreign sales by the top 100 minority businesses

<1%

Of corporate spending currently goes to them

/01The Brief

Free is the hardest thing to sell.

Minority Business Matters offers London’s ethnic minority businesses one-to-one support, learning programmes, networks and access to buyers. It costs nothing. That is exactly the problem.

Founders who have been overlooked by institutions do not respond to something that looks institutional, and free support carries an unspoken suggestion that it is second rate. The brand had to read as an opportunity rather than a scheme, and the founders in it had to look like people you would want to do business with.

/02The Identity

Three forms, interlocked.

The mark is built from three interlocking arches: businesses, buyers and the network that connects them, none of which works alone. The journey of a minority-owned business is rarely a straight line, and the form holds both the difficulty and the resilience in it.

The MBM mark across coral, cyan, navy and white grounds

Every permitted colourway, decided up front. This mark has to sit beside a government crest without looking like a charity leaflet

Horizontal lockups in cyan and coral on navy

Stacked and horizontal lockup arrangements

Stacked and horizontal, on light and on dark. A programme brand ends up on other people’s documents, so every arrangement is drawn rather than left to chance

Colour system: coral, cyan, navy and white with full specifications

Coral carries the energy, cyan the movement, navy the weight. The numerals get their own face, because the numbers are the argument

The ribbon runs through every application, so a photograph becomes MBM the moment it is placed

51% owned by individuals of ethnic origin. £18.5 billion in foreign sales by the top 100 minority businesses. The system is built to let those numbers be the loudest thing on the page

Printed collateral: flyers and programme literature

Partner lockups with UK Government, Mayor of London, Levelling Up and MSDUK

And the part nobody enjoys drawing: every partner lockup, with the UK Government, the Mayor of London, Levelling Up and MSDUK, resolved for light and dark before anyone needed one

/03The Campaign

Unlocking the power of responsible and diverse businesses.

The line does the work the statistics cannot do on their own. One million ethnic minority businesses contribute £74 billion to the economy, and receive less than one percent of corporate spending. Framed as a shortfall it reads as a complaint. Framed as unlocked potential it reads as an opportunity for the buyer as much as the founder.

The campaign was built as a full asset suite to specification, so the programme could run it without coming back to us: stories, posts, display units in every standard size, and leaderboards.