When a charity’s greatest downside is that it is too quiet, you do not begin with color. You begin with voice. And voice, in model design, begins with sort. That is the lesson on the coronary heart of UnitedUs‘s rebrand of Buttle UK; a 70-year-old youngsters’s grant-giving charity that, by its personal admission, had been too modest for the size of the issue it existed to handle.
The Brighton company’s response was a brand new identification constructed round a rigorously orchestrated typographic system: three distinct tiers of sort, every doing a particular job, every calibrated to a special emotional register. It is a piece of labor that repays shut consideration from anybody all in favour of how letterforms can carry which means… far past the phrases they spell.
The issue with being understated
Buttle supplies grants for issues most of us take as a right: a mattress, a coat, a laptop computer for homework, a faculty journey. These aren’t luxurious objects, however for youngsters dwelling in poverty, they’ll make a world of distinction. The charity’s earlier identification, whereas completely purposeful, lacked the emotional vary to speak that reality. It was, within the phrases of UnitedUs companion Luke Taylor, a model that wanted to “spark dialog” slightly than politely wait its flip.
The strategic pivot landed on a strapline—”For what issues in childhood”—that reframes the charity’s work away from the medical language of disaster intervention and in direction of the kid’s personal expertise. All the things that adopted within the visible identification, typography included, needed to serve that shift.
Reckless: the storybook voice
The centrepiece of the kind system is Reckless, a serif face that instantly units Buttle aside from the sans-serif default of a lot of the charity sector. It is an fascinating selection, and a assured one. The place many organisations reaching for “fashionable” or “accessible” would instinctively flip to a geometrical sans, UnitedUs went in the wrong way: in direction of heat, narrative and nostalgia.
Reckless carries what the company describes as a “traditional storybook really feel”, and that makes good sense. As a result of the rebrand’s visible references aren’t up to date youngsters’s media however one thing older and extra common: the clear, emotionally direct illustration type of Miffy, Spot the Canine and Mr Benn.
Reckless sits comfortably in that world. Its letterforms have a mild magnificence with out being treasured, and critically, embrace child-friendly, single-storey types for ‘a’, ‘g’ and ‘y’. It is a element that massively issues for readability amongst youthful audiences and readers with dyslexia.
Used at show scale throughout the web site, impression studies and marketing campaign supplies, Reckless does the heavy emotional lifting. Traces resembling “For what issues in childhood” and “Your impression, their story” acquire a quiet authority from the typeface’s serif building. On the identical time, its barely casual proportions forestall that authority from tipping into stuffiness.
All of it reads as somebody telling you one thing essential in a heat, regular voice. Which is precisely the tone a charity like Buttle wants when it is speaking to donors, referrers and policymakers concurrently.
Neue Haas Grotesk: the invisible spine
If Reckless is the storyteller, Neue Haas Grotesk is the infrastructure. Deployed for physique copy throughout all communications, it is a selection that indicators typographic literacy. Neue Haas Grotesk is, as chances are you’ll know, the unique drawing from which Helvetica was derived. However the place Helvetica has been softened and homogenised via a long time of ubiquity, Neue Haas Grotesk retains a crispness and character that rewards use at textual content sizes.
It really works right here exactly since you do not discover it. In long-form studying (grant studies, coverage paperwork, the charity’s web site copy), it steps again totally, letting the content material breathe. The distinction with Reckless is instructive: the place the serif speaks with persona, the sans speaks with readability.
Collectively, they create a rhythm that strikes between emotional engagement and informational transparency, mirroring the charity’s twin position as each storyteller and evidence-led organisation.
The pairing additionally solves a sensible downside. Buttle communicates with an unusually big selection of audiences: youngsters and younger individuals, frontline social employees, particular person donors, company funders, trustees and authorities our bodies. A single typeface would wrestle to handle all of them credibly. The 2-voice system lets the model modulate its tone with out ever feeling inconsistent.
Childhood sort: the joyful disruption
The third tier is the place issues get correctly playful. UnitedUs developed a “childhood sort” type: a bespoke, expressive therapy utilizing daring, multicoloured block letterforms impressed by retro toys and classic illustration. You’ll be able to see it most clearly within the “Frank Mindset” lockup: outsized letters in inexperienced, blue, orange, yellow and pink, stacked and overlapping with a hand-drawn power that is fully in contrast to the rest within the system.
This therapy is used sparingly, and that restraint is what makes it efficient. It seems for moments of impression (key statistics, marketing campaign headlines, the phrase “armour” on a branded t-shirt), the place a shot of pure, uncomplicated pleasure cuts via the in any other case measured tone. It capabilities virtually like a baby’s handwriting breaking into an grownup dialog: disruptive, charming and unimaginable to disregard.
The color palette right here deserves a point out too, as a result of it is inseparable from the kind therapy. Whereas Buttle’s major palette is stripped again to a deep brown-black on off-white (excessive distinction, extremely accessible), the childhood sort unlocks the total secondary palette of daring primaries and heat pastels.
The impact is of a model that is aware of when to be critical and when to let color and persona flood in. That self-discipline is more durable to attain than it seems to be.
The wordmark: hiding in plain sight
The Buttle wordmark itself is a quiet piece of craft. Set in a heavy, rounded lowercase, it carries a visible softness that belies its weight. The double ‘t’ types the centrepiece, a motif carried over from the earlier identification however reimagined as a extra summary, virtually architectural aspect. There’s one thing of the constructing block about it, which feels intentional for an organisation whose work is about offering foundations.
The wordmark sits comfortably at small sizes on a cellphone display and at a big scale on a presentation wall. That flexibility issues for a charity that should present up persistently throughout grant utility portals, Instagram tales, impression studies and occasion signage.
Why it really works
What makes this typographic system convincing is not any single aspect; it is the relationships between them. Reckless supplies emotional heat and narrative voice. Neue Haas Grotesk supplies neutrality and belief. The childhood sort supplies power and distinctiveness. Every occupies its personal territory, and the transitions between them really feel pure slightly than jarring.
It is a system that is been designed with operational consciousness in thoughts. A charity of Buttle’s dimension would not have an in-house design staff producing each piece of collateral. The kind system must be usable by non-designers producing inside paperwork, by exterior companies creating marketing campaign work, and by digital groups constructing internet pages. The readability of the three-tier hierarchy makes that attainable; you all the time know which voice to achieve for.
General, the Buttle rebrand is a helpful case research in how typography can do strategic work. The typeface selections aren’t ornamental; they’re argumentative. They make a case for what this charity is, who it speaks to, and the way it desires to be understood. In a sector the place visible identification is simply too usually an afterthought—a brand refresh and a brand new color swatch—that is a welcome reminder of what considerate typographic design can obtain.
UnitedUs hasn’t simply given Buttle a brand new look. They’ve given it a voice with vary.
