Design recruitment company Craft has revealed a brand new model identification that leans firmly into what it does finest: cultivating inventive careers and groups for the long run, relatively than merely filling vacancies.
Launched after greater than a decade in enterprise, the refreshed identification arrives at a pivotal second for the Manchester-headquartered firm. Craft now works with lots of the studios and types it as soon as admired from afar, inserting expertise on the likes of Koto, Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Pearlfisher, Elmwood and in-house on the New York Instances, Channel 4, Deloitte and Asahi.
That huge attain has shifted the kind of dialog the company is having. As senior placements develop – round 30% of its work now focuses on management roles – the group realised its playful, Elmwood-designed identification from ten years in the past was struggling to maintain tempo. The unique idea, constructed round thousands and thousands of emblem variations to replicate the individuality of expertise, had served them effectively, however the tone not matched the burden of the work.
“We have been going for 12 years, and our model had began to really feel a bit juvenile and playful to be maybe as severe because the companies that we provide, so it was time to develop up,” says Daisy Crowder, the company’s model and advertising director.
That does not imply abandoning the vitality that made Craft stand out within the first place. The brand new model, created with a worldwide roster of collaborators, is designed to really feel grown-up with out drifting into generic recruitment territory. The concept that holds every thing collectively is “cultivation”, described by founder Dan Crowder as “the intentional technique of turning potential into progress”.
“Actual progress is not passive. It is highly effective. By means of care, consideration, and cultivation, we assist creatives, groups, and organisations flourish,” Dan says. The language is intentionally agricultural, evoking endurance and care, and reflecting how Craft sees its function within the business, not simply at present however ten years from now.
Daisy explains: “Nature is that inherent expertise that folks within the design business have – their ambition, their potential that is untapped. Nurture is our steerage, assist and vitality to maneuver individuals and companies ahead.”
Visually, that metaphor exhibits up in a brand new floral system on the coronary heart of the identification. A bespoke image, shaped from the 4 Cs – Craft Cultivates Inventive Group – serves because the anchor.
Round it, a sequence of pictures by Valencia-based photographer Paula Codoner explores flowers as stand-ins for qualities the company seeks when constructing groups: resilience, independence, shut bonds, pleasure, and variety.
“We really gave a flora transient,” Daisy says. “Flowers have this glorious symbolism behind them, so we briefed in flower varieties that symbolise resilience, independence, shut bonds, pleasure and variety – all these great phrases that relate to design careers.”
Paula describes the collaboration as a pure match. “Their concept of cultivation resonated deeply with how I strategy pictures: cautious, intentional, and open to the surprising. My function was to create a visible world that displays a slow-growing ecosystem, the place creativity just isn’t rushed, however allowed to flourish below the fitting situations.”
Moderately than depart the imagery in a purely photographic area, Craft and its companions pushed issues additional by way of digital therapies and generative image-making. Led by Los Angeles studio Sundry, based by former Koto inventive Dave Rax, the flowers are warped, layered and mapped onto meshes to create what the group calls “textural petals”.
Movement rules echo the identical concept, with components unfurling, swaying and oscillating to recommend residing methods relatively than static belongings. “It is a motion that is very completely different to the ‘now hiring’ most individuals shout at you with,” Daisy says.
The typography and core palette additionally mark a acutely aware transfer away from what she describes because the “shouty sans world” of job boards and black-and-white company recruitment manufacturers.
“We’re transferring into small, crafted typography as a result of there’s loads of shouty sans world when individuals are hiring,” she explains. “We exist the place the perfect design on the planet exists, so we have to transfer the needle once more, resonate with inventive leaders globally and be a transparent articulation of Craft’s worth and fervour.”
In case it wasn’t already clear, Craft’s viewers was on the coronary heart of this venture all through. The company speaks day by day with inventive administrators, technique leads, and senior consumer companies people, all of whom stay and breathe visible language. They do not, as Daisy factors out, want one other inventory illustration of “three individuals round a gathering desk”.
The rebrand additionally mirrors Craft’s working mannequin. The identification itself was “crafted around the globe”, bringing collectively Sundry in Los Angeles, Paula in Valencia, digital design from Good Metropolis in Copenhagen and Paris, and verbal identification from Berlin-based author Louie Zeegen. It actually proves Craft’s capability to attach the fitting inventive companions with the fitting alternatives throughout geographies and disciplines.
Past the visuals, the concept of cultivation underpins the company’s wider exercise. Occasions, a podcast on inventive management, and a gentle drumbeat of content material are all geared in direction of supporting the business for the lengthy haul.
Daisy says: “It is as a result of we genuinely need the design business to do higher in 10 years. That truly issues to us. We’re not in it for a fast buck. We have been doing this for 12 years now, and we would like longevity.”
Dan provides: “The Craft model is not simply our visible or verbal identification – it displays our tradition too. It captures who we’re and displays the place we’re heading: nurturing inventive expertise, shaping groups, and creating the fitting situations for progress.”
For an company that lives between studios and expertise, it is an identification that appears past the quick time period and focuses on what can develop, as all good recruitment ought to.
