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Samson Centre Rebrand and Website

Samson CentreRebrand and Website

A bit about the Samson Centre

The Samson Centre is an inspiring charity based in Guildford focused on helping people with MS live the best life they can, by keeping well physically and mentally. They offer people affected by MS a safe place to make friends, to benefit from expert physiotherapy and oxygen therapy as well as a state of the art gym to keep active. They are entirely self-funded and provide essential services that the NHS does not.

The brief

The Samson Centre came to us as they felt their brand needed a bit of an overhaul. In a crowded charity market, it was essential that they continuing to raise funds in order to stay open. They were eager to raise awareness of the Centre locally, to encourage people to donate money, as well as attracting younger people affected by the disease. Their existing brand was rather dated and they felt it was an ideal time to articulate the Centre’s vision and to align it with their visual identity.

It was important to them that their different stakeholders were consulted throughout the process – staff, members, trustees and volunteers alike.

Brand strategy

One of the key objectives of the project was to align the Samson Centre vision with how they presented themselves. So the first thing we did was to help them articulate their brand vision, mission and values. We did this based on one-to-one stakeholder interviews and a questionnaire sent to a cross-section of members, staff and volunteers. This gave us the foundations on which to build the new identity.

Brand identity

The identity was created based on their new brand vision:

“A beacon of hope and support for anyone living with MS in our local community”.

We maintained the roof from the previous logo but evolved it to become more of a beacon. We also reviewed the colour palette, choosing a brighter blue and introducing a fresh secondary green.

Samson Centre vision created by Orangery

Photography

To us it was really important to get across the human element of the brand as the people are what makes the centre such a unique and special place to be. Working with local photographer, Paul Mitchell, we were able to capture the positive, uplifting personality of the Samson Centre, a place that offers hope and friendship to so many.

Website

The website is one of the charity’s main touchpoints. The old website was no longer fit for purpose and did not reflect the place it is today. Firstly we created a new sitemap for the website, we then designed wireframes for each page, always thinking about the user experience, particularly with disabled people in mind. Unfortunately one of the symptoms of MS can be visual impairment so this was an important consideration in our design process.

We helped the Samson Centre rewrite their web copy to make it more engaging, picking out quotes from the members and staff and ensuring there was a clear call to action on every page.

Rollout

The brand was rolled out across multiple items including collection boxes, fund raising tabards, stationery, pull up banners as well as social assets.

The result

The new rebrand is a true reflection of what the charity stands for today. The feedback from members, staff and trustees alike has been so positive and we were honoured and humbled to be able to help this incredible cause.

“You are all so easy to work…look forward to being able to access our lovely new website…and I will certainly be letting  our members and others know about it.  A massive improvement on what we  have had in place for a long time!  Thank you Orangery.”