Founded in 2020, Spacemade is a co-working space provider with a difference. Rather than just plopping yourself down wherever there’s a space, you get your own permanent desk in what’s intended to be a beautifully designed, shared workspace. The company currently has 11 locations across England – nine in London, one in Birmingham, and one in Leeds.
This January, they decided it was time for a new visual identity. The original Spacemade identity was designed with solely B2B audiences in mind. It consisted of a simple all-lowercase wordmark and a logomark formed of a patterned ‘s’ shape. The idea had been that while the B2B-intended branding for Spacemade was minimal and somewhat corporate, personality would come through in the designs for the individual locations.
They initially contacted Wildish & Co. on the strength of its experience in creating brands which had to flex across digital applications and real-life physical spaces. (One example of this had been their work for Curve Club, which we covered in May last year.)
Based in Clerkenwell, London, Wildish & Co. is an independent creative studio established in 2012. Their work spans from start-ups to global brands such as Penhaligon’s London, Bumble, Badoo, Timex Global, Penguin Random House and Nestlé.
The brief
For the 2024 redesign, Spacemade worked on strategy in-house, including its redefined purpose, mission, vision, values, personality and tone of voice. Wildish & Co., meanwhile, was tasked with creating a cohesive, confident identity system.
This umbrella identity had to straddle all the individual locations while strengthening the central parent brand across marketing materials, digital, physical spaces, and more to increase brand awareness and recognition as the business continued to expand.
“There’s a difference between a logo and some nice brand fonts and a design system,” explains Wildish & Co. founder and managing director Sam Fresco. The time had come for Spacemade to apply that strategic thinking and create a comprehensive design system that can move with the business as it evolves.”
Brand positioning
“We recently made a deliberate transition from a B2B brand primarily aimed at institutional landlords to a B2B2C brand with a stronger consumer focus,” says Anna Wollaston, head of marketing at Spacemade. “The existing visual brand identity was no longer fit for purpose: our evolution underscored the need for a well-defined, fresh and inspiring parent brand.”
The new branding had to captivate a wide range of audiences, each with unique needs and reasons for engaging with Spacemade. On the corporate front, it needed to appeal to investors, landlords and brokers, while on the consumer side, it had to attract a diverse mix of individuals and companies with preferences that vary by location. The challenge was to create a brand that could seamlessly resonate with both worlds.
“One challenge in creating the graphic devices for the new brand was ensuring scalability, versatility, accessibility, and cultural appropriateness,” says Wildish & Co.