After a few years of establishing the Famous Five illustrations as a recognisable and familiar feature of the GWR brand, it was time to evolve the suite of illustrations and be prepared for the possibility of no longer retaining the Famous Five IP in our campaigns.
The challenge was to retain our brand aesthetic while also giving us the possibility of using the illustrations across a wider range of messages (without the restrictions that come along with using the Famous Five). We wanted to build on what we have and be prepared for the future while also enhancing the beautiful suite of illustrated artwork where possible.
My first thought was to keep the illustrations we already have and remove the Famous Five.
The style, colour palette, brush strokes and atmosphere of the illustrations was owned by GWR even if the IP wasn't, and over the years that style had become synonymous with the brand.
The strap lines used the 'Adventuring' font, a bespoke typeface that resembled the titles used on the front covers in the original books. This needed to go along with the Famous Five as and when they were removed from illustrations, as it should only be used in context with the Famous Five to give the feel of opening up a new book, a new adventure.
This was replaced with Glypha 65 Bold, GWR's signature font, bringing the design closer to the company's core brand style.
The result was a new found ability to spread the illustrations far wider across the brand's channels of communications.
As long as we still had the Famous Five illustrations, we now had a second set of illustrations that worked for messages that previously weren't an option.
We embraced the aesthetic as part of our brand and began to develop the 'illustrated world' around our messages.
Where we previously had 20 illustrations, for example, we now had 40 and we could use them more strategically.
We were also now future proofed against the possibility of losing the IP and had an alternative route available that can be built upon if needed as well as retaining a lot of the styles we had worked hard on developing.
