All together now

Rethink Mental Illness
Brand refresh

Helping Rethink define their place in the mental health space. 

What we did

Discovery
Testing
Positioning
Messaging
Tone of voice
Visual identity

As the leading charity provider of mental health services in England, Rethink Mental Illness has many moving parts to tie together.


From fundraising, membership and campaigning, to training and support groups, they need to be and say a lot of different things to a lot of different people. 

But their brand voice and visual identity felt too formal and cold to speak to all of their audiences in a way that’s engaging, authentic and welcoming, especially for service users.

Over the years, piecemeal updates had also led to a lack of cohesion across the brand as a whole, leaving teams a little lost.

They needed a fresh approach that was memorable, easy to follow and would result in more aligned, consistent and engaging content.

Purple background with white words, and a Rethink Mental Illness logo in the bottom-right corner. The words say: ‘We're Rethink Mental Illness. No matter how bad things are, we can help people severely affected by mental illness improve their lives.'

On the visual side, the team didn’t want to radically move away from their logo, but the term ‘mental illness’ was seen as a barrier for people who need support but don’t see themselves as living with a mental illness. They needed a logo that was flexible for all situations, applications and audiences.    

Our solution? Some simple small tweaks. Moving the full stop (which had lost all meaning) out of the circle instantly adds more ‘thought’. And a clearer word mark helps with legibility.

The new palette of colours for the Rethink Mental Illness brand refresh. It is mainly different gradients and hues of purples and blues.

The brand’s primary cyan colour was proven inaccessible and so the charity had already naturally moved towards purple – we just made it official. This colour shift instantly helps the charity stand out in a predominately blue mental health space, and develops an accessible colour palette with purpose.

Gradients were introduced to visually represent mental state transitions, acting as a bridge from calm service materials to bold campaigns.

Dark purple background with different shapes, like a flower, circle and rounded triangle, in different shades of blue, pink and purple. These illustrate the new 'thought shapes' for Rethink to use across their updated visual branding.
Three social media posts for Rethink Mental Illness are shown on a dark purple background. The posts show the updated style, tone and colours of the charity's brand refresh.
Three leaflets for Rethink Mental Illness on a dark purple background. The leaflets show the new style of imagery, colours, design elements and Rethink logo developed by Lark Agency as part of their brand refresh.

New graphic ‘thought’ shapes were created to subtly reflect different mental states, these shapes then informed the visual identity, being used to create image containers,  icons, illustration, and visually linking all brand touch points  together in a coherent yet flexible identity.

A flexibly illustration system was designed to make it simple create a diverse range of people.

Four rows of small purple icons, such as speech bubbles, cups of tea, a clock, money and more. These demonstrate the new flexible illustration system designed by Lark as part of Rethink's visual rebrand.
A moving graphic illustration of a face in Rethink brand colours that keeps changing into different people; old, young, black, white, male, female, etc.
Illustration of four people with various items of purple clothing. One is under a rain cloud, one is curled up on the floor with a speech bubble saying, 'I need support'. These graphic elements are part of the Rethink Mental Illness brand refresh.

“On more than one occasion Lark went over and above, which is incredibly rare for an agency. They were professional and lovely to work with, and we have new branding which we are delighted with. We’d recommend Lark to anyone.”

Amanda Thomson, Head of Brand, Communications & Marketing at Rethink

Light purple background with white text overlay reading, ‘1 in 4 people will be affected by a mental health problem in their lifetime’. Illustrations of four different people are at the bottom.
An illustration of seven people, of all different sizes, shapes, ages and colours. These people are to show that anyone can be affected by mental illness.

“Lark immediately seemed to get ‘us’,” says Amanda Thomson, Head of Brand, Communications & Marketing at Rethink. 

“They understood our need to engage our different audiences with a considered but flexible tone of voice, and the importance of the language we use for describing what we do. They helped us to think about modernising our brand to make it warmer and accessible, whilst ensuring that our longstanding supporters wouldn’t feel we had drifted too far away from the current one.

 “Unlike some agencies which can be a bit pushy, they really listened to our needs and offered advice when needed, rather than foisting their ideas upon us.”

A close-up photo of a charity shop door with a purple Rethink sign on the inside. This is show what their new branding looks like in the wild.
A young woman with long dark hair is wearing a purple top and doing some gardening. A purple speech bubble with white text reads, “I am starting to love my life the way it is” Dominika, Service user.

More work

Three children sit at a table in a classroom. A young girl in the middle looks distracted. Behind her is a yellow noticeboard with colourful paintings that spell out, ‘I live with dementia’. This is an awareness campaign for Dementia UK.

Dementia UK

Brand awareness campaign

 

A woman with brown hair, wearing a light blue hoodie, is holding a cartoon drawing of an 8kg kettle bell in front of a bright yellow background. Handwritten text reads, ‘Raise your game’. This is part of a fundraising campaign for Bowel Cancer UK.

Bowel Cancer UK

Verbal and visual identity