Rebranding a shared-space school sports facility welcoming guests of all ages with fun and friendly vibes.
North London’s Highgate School owns and operates the Mallinson Sports Centre, a complex featuring a swimming pool, sports courts and weights gym, used exclusively by pupils during school hours for sports activities in term time. However, school management recognised commercial opportunities to extend the use of facilities outside of school hours and during holidays to generate revenue; in particular, the use of the pool for swim classes, and the popularity of holiday camps. Following a consultation with key stakeholders, including the School’s Enterprise and Sports teams, we established that this commercial offering should become a standalone brand with its own visual identity, appealing to the target demographic. Beyond this, the complex required a review of its wayfinding signage, whilst its reception area was undergoing a refurbishment. The facilities would be used by people of all ages.
To maintain a vibrant feel conveying wellness and inspiring staying active, I created a flexible design system to encompass the key activities offered, inspired by longstanding sports and modern fitness and wellbeing. Renamed simply ‘Mallinson Sports’ to build on existing brand equity, the new visual identity included a colour scheme dominated by Sports Blue (evoking outdoor blue skies and swimming waters); extending to colours associated with key segments of the sports complex, including swim, group sports and fitness development. The colour system had to work across a multitude of media channels, as visuals were produced for digital platforms, traditional advertising and swag, and was applied to redesigned wayfinding signage, creating a more intuitive flow of traffic.
The logo was designed to look strong and impactful (the ‘M’ in Mallinson doubling as a standalone symbol), allowing sub-divisions, such as Mallinson Camps, to be formed. It has the flexibility of working seamlessly across digital spaces and tangible materials, with the ability to scale across formats. Visual assets were then applied to signage, staff uniforms, print and digital adverts, and a redesigned website featured a new digital payment system and copy written in a tone that was friendly, relatable and focussed on fitness and fun to entice new customers to make use of the facilities.
The new identity was launched before the summer holidays and the impact began to show soon afterwards. The branding of Mallinson Sports provided a clear boost to staff morale, who felt they could better connect and rally around the new identity that felt fresh and exciting. Holiday camps were almost immediately booked out for the entire summer, with swim lessons and multiple exercise classes consistently seeing their highest attendance rates. Within the first year, revenue from commercial use of facilities grew more than double over the previous year.
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