Case study: Bright and vibrant future for charity following major re-brand

Company overview

Based in the heart of rural Wealden in East Sussex, Rotherfield St Martin is an award winning, community-led charity, primarily supporting the elderly within the parish of Rotherfield and surrounding areas. A higher than average elderly population combined with poor transport links and reduced access to services inherent with a rural community, Rotherfield St Martin provides a vital lifeline to its 220+ members. Services include a volunteer driver service as well as a drop-in centre for the community to enjoy coffee, cake, borrow books from the extensive library and take part in over 15 different clubs and activities.

The challenge

Prior to a full redesign of the current website, the management team and trustees felt that the overall brand needed a refresh. Based on local landmarks, the imagery within the existing logo was well-known within the community, with a friendly, home-spun feel. The brief required a design that would continue to appeal to the members and reflect how the charity had grown since its inception in 2001. This ‘elevation’ of the brand becomes particularly important when competing for funds, donations and grants – something which is critical for all charities.

Original Rotherfield St Martin Logo

Original Rotherfield St Martin Logo

Our solution

Through a series of meetings with key stakeholders within the charity (members, volunteers and the management team), we established a real feel for the charity, its origin story, and its direction for the future. We discussed the services offered, the local community and how a balance could be struck between creating a new logo that is as equally recognisable as the existing logo, and ensuring that the charity isn’t pigeon-holed to a particular service or area of the community.

From a series of initial pencil sketches, these were refined into 8 unique digital designs that were shared with the management and iteratively improved until we had a short-list of designs, ready for presentation to the Board of Trustees. A design was unanimously agreed on (the selected design was based on a beautiful ceramic sign, previously created for Rotherfield St Martin by a local ceramicist) and further refined to incorporate an excerpt from Rotherfield St Martin’s mission statement “inspiring our community to care for one another”.

Bright, bold and colourful brand colours were selected to reflect the vibrancy of the members and along with the logo and a selection of appropriate typography, Atomicity Digital created a brand guide, providing support on usage of the colour palette, logo and typography for all future Rotherfield St Martin marketing efforts.

The New Logo

The New Logo

Deliverables from this project included:

  • Brand guide - logo, palette and typography usage
  • Social media assets - correctly-sized logos for each channel - Facebook, Twitter etc.
  • Stationery - letterheads, compliment slips
  • Templates for Microsoft Office products

The results

Feedback on the new brand has been exceptionally positive, particularly regarding the logo. There is a continued recognition of the brand and what it stands for, whilst not restricting the charity’s ability to grow.

Furthermore, the exercise provides a solid foundation for a full re-design of the website.

Sample Brand Guide

Sample Brand Guide

What our client says

“Our new logo and rebrand is exactly what we were looking for. Adam spent time really getting to know our charity, the people it supports and the community that it serves and the result is a bright and vibrant look. Whilst acknowledging and respecting the roots of the charity, Adam was able to create a fresh brand which will take us successfully into the future”

Vicky Cheeseman, Charity Manager, Rotherfield St Martin, September 2018

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