Figurative
A new organisation, a new name, and a brand built to speak to finance and the arts at once.
Project Details
Client: Figurative (formerly Arts & Culture Finance)
Sector: Arts & Culture / Charity & The Third Sector
Services: Branding, Report Design, Web Care, Web Design, Web Development
Year: 2023 - 2024
Figurative emerged from Nesta’s incubation as a new, independent organisation specialising in social impact investment for the arts and culture sector. We delivered the brand identity, digital assets and website that took them from incubated programme to an independent, trusted name in time for their official launch in February 2024.
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Audiences: Finance and policy professionals, and arts and culture practitioners — one brand for both
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Weeks from brief to a fully rolled out brand and launch event
A new name, a pivotal moment
Arts & Culture Finance had operated within Nesta as a specialist in social impact investment, supporting organisations from Birmingham Royal Ballet to Future Yard in Birkenhead. As the organisation prepared to become fully independent, it needed a new name, a new identity, and a digital presence that could carry it confidently into its next chapter. The new name (Figurative) needed a brand that lived up to it.
The brief was specific about who that brand needed to speak to. Arts, culture and heritage professionals on one side. Finance and policy professionals on the other. And beyond both, a wider public that Figurative wanted to become a genuinely trusted and recognisable name to. Most brands serve one of these audiences well. Figurative needed to serve all three without compromising for any of them.
We began with research into Figurative’s organisational goals, audiences and long-term ambitions, working closely with stakeholders to understand what the new identity needed to communicate before any design work began. From there we developed moodboards to open up the visual conversation, followed by several distinct brand concepts, each reflecting a different facet of Figurative’s personality, before refining the chosen direction into a complete identity system.
A brand that needed to speak to finance professionals, arts practitioners and the public, without compromising for any of them.”
A full system, ready to launch
The finished identity needed to work everywhere Figurative operates. A logo with mono, white and small-scale versions, a full style guide, social media graphics, email and presentation templates, publication templates for reports and newsletters, and print materials including business cards and brochures. We delivered all of it as one coherent system, along with a rollout plan to manage the transition smoothly across every existing platform and touchpoint.
Figurative launched its new identity and website in February 2024, in time for a public launch event and press coverage marking its arrival as a fully independent organisation.
A website built to do justice to the brand
The website needed to do more than host the new identity. It had to migrate existing content from the old Arts & Culture Finance site without losing visibility or continuity, present Figurative’s mission and impact clearly to both professional and public audiences, and support ongoing editorial content as the organisation’s work developed.
We built the site on WordPress, designed to be fully responsive and accessible across devices. Forms, social integration and blog functionality were built in from the outset, giving Figurative a platform they could use to publish news, share impact stories and engage directly with the sector, not just a static brochure site sitting behind the new brand.
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