Co-ownership is Northern Ireland’s shared-ownership housing charity, helping people onto the property ladder since the late 1970s. After more than fifteen years the identity had aged: capable, but cold, and heavy with the kind of language that puts first-time buyers off. The brief was simple to say and hard to do. Make it fresh, modern and, above all, human, and take the organisation confidently into its next chapter.
We built the whole system around the one character already hiding in the name: the percent sign. It does the explaining for us. Part owned, part rented, the shared-ownership split held in a single mark. Folded inside a house outline it becomes a stamp of approval, a symbol of home that can stand on its own or sit beside the logotype, scale up onto a wall or shrink onto a business card.
Then we changed how Co-ownership speaks. Out went scheme, tenant and house. In came solution, co-owner and home. Plain English, warm and conversational, a chat over coffee rather than a mortgage meeting. Even the customers were rebranded: not tenants, co-owners, one step from home-owners.
From there we took it everywhere. Logo and stationery, signage and reception, out-of-home and promo, web, social and mobile, all wrapped in a nine-colour palette anchored by a confident coral red. Two sub-brands came along for the move: Rent to Own, which borrows the percent device, and Over 55, where the ‘greater than’ sign doubles as the v of over. The lot was documented in a full set of guidelines so the brand stays itself wherever it turns up.
Client
Co-Ownership · Northern Ireland Co-Ownership Housing Association
Discipline
Brand Identity & Rebrand
Services
- Brand Strategy
- Identity Design
- Tone of Voice
- Print & Stationery
- Signage & Environments
- Out-of-Home & Digital
- Brand Guidelines
