At this year’s Create Deign Awards, London studio The Partners came out top of the Identity category for their project, The Tusk Conservation Awards. The jury cited the care in the details, and the flexibility across different touchpoints, as the strengths of the campaign.

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desktop checks in with creative director Stuart Radford to learn more about the project and more importantly, to know more about The Partners.

Congratulations on the win. Give us a backstory. How did the Tusk Conservation Awards come to your practice?

Tusk Conservation Awards came to us via Investec, one of our long-standing clients. Investec are a South African company and are proud of their roots. Tusk [Trust] is a pioneering organisation with 25 years’ experience initiating and funding conservation and community programmes across Africa. Since it began in 1990, Tusk has invested over £25 million in projects across the continent. In 2012, Investec and Tusk joined forces to set up Tusk Conservation Awards to recognise and celebrate the vital work being done by Tusk’s conservationists.

What was the initial brief and how did you and your team tackle it?

We were asked to create a visual identity for Tusk Conservation Awards. They originally wanted a logo that featured a silhouette of the African continent (as per the main Tusk brand). We started by looking at how we could do this, but after some initial research it became obvious that a lot of organisations have used that silhouette in many different ways and it would be almost impossible to do something original with it. We also felt that, despite how quickly it communicated what Tusk Conservation Awards focuses on, it lacked personality. We knew we could do something with more character for a continent as rich and diverse as Africa.

The Partners for The Tusk Trust

What were the key points of inspiration?

Clearly, our key points of inspiration were African patterns. We felt that they had huge potential as visual language and were also very expressive. We spent a long time researching and studying various African patterns, paying particular attention to the visual qualities and aesthetic details of patterns on African mud huts, beading, fabrics and porcelain. We found that the African patterns had a very strong vertical, linear structure to them. We also discovered that the patterns often featured a contrast of large bold shapes with smaller shapes, which have them a graphic texture.

How did you and your team tackle the design and the execution of the entire project?

We discussed using African patterns very early on in the concept stage. However, it was extremely important for us that we gave Tusk Conservation Awards a visual identity that they could own and something that expressed Africa authentically. Therefore, we spent a great deal of time thinking about how we could do something more unexpected and original with the patterns, whilst retaining their aesthetic heritage. Finally, we developed the idea of creating a step and repeat pattern from four blocks, each block taking its form from a letter: T-U-S-K.

Once our clients bought into the idea, we went about refining and crafting the execution of the pattern/letterforms. We refined the letterforms endlessly. Each tweak not only affected the relationship between each letterform but the step and repeat pattern, too, so this process was both challenging and time-consuming. We also explored colour. In fact, initially we were keen to use a number of bright colours. But through the design development process it become clear to us that using one vibrant colour along with black gave us a more powerful and distinctive visual identity that would be easy for our clients to implement.

How involved was the client from the conceptual stages and throughout the design process?

Essentially, we had two clients, Tusk Conservation Awards and Investec. Both were fantastic. Both were involved in all stages of the process from briefing through to final artwork and a combination of their trust, receptiveness, value for design and vision has undoubtedly help us create a strong visual identity.

What were the main challenges in the project and how did you overcome them?

We had a few challenges.

Our first was very early on in the process when we had to convince our clients that the pattern approach would create a stronger visual identity than the African continent silhouette. This took a number of conversations but, once agreed, it was a very smooth process and our clients were receptive to the ideas that helped bring the new brand alive, such as the Land Rover livery and the wristband.

Our second was refining the letterforms/pattern – a design challenge that had us chasing our tail at times.

And our third came from suggesting that Tusk create the wristbands in Africa. This helped us create a campaign element that became the most authentic expression of the visual identity concept. However, finding an African tribe that could create them using traditional African beading techniques in just a few weeks – including transportation – was tricky.  After a few days’ searching Suzanne, our account director, came up trumps and found us the Enkiito tribe in Kenya who were able to do it. Our next challenge was then to art direct the creation of these wristbands from our London office. For a week or so, we received a very low-res camera phone picture of a new wristband every other day, we fed back our comments and after a few versions the Enkiito tribe nailed it – it was a lovely moment.

Tell us what “The Partners” is all about - what do you do?

Established for over 30 years, The Partners is one of the UK’s leading branding agencies. We help some of the world’s largest organisations develop their brands, including BBC, Deloitte, Ford and Samsung. We are currently the most awarded brand agency at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and we’re also ranked the UK’s most creative branding agency. At the heart of all our work lies a single-minded, big idea, which drives and galvanises our creative thinking, enabling us to create powerful and engaging brand campaigns, expressions and identities.

What’s the creative process like when you guys get a new project? 

Our creative process is very much a collaborative one. Firstly, we really get to grips with the brief, question it, challenge it and ultimately define our creative approach before we start designing. We brainstorm and work individually to develop our ideas. All ideas are shared and developed collaborative until we’ve nailed it!

Can you tell us a little about what you guys are working on now or what’s next for the studio? 

What’s next? More great ideas – the search goes on!

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Images by The Partners.