WECIL

Creative partners and brand strategists for the West of England Centre of Independent Living – an award winning DPO.

Brand Strategy & Design
Website & UX Design
Website Optimisation
TOV & Copywriting
Content Strategy
Content Production
Video & Animation
Social Media Management

A huge part of our community, the West of England Centre for Inclusive Living, or WECIL for short, is an award winning, user led organisation dedicated to supporting independent living to create a more inclusive society. They work with anyone who identifies as being a disabled person, is user led and have have supported independent living since 1995.

the challenge

Evolving from a volunteering project through our Design for Good initiative, our work with WECIL had two clear objectives at the outset.

Firstly, to modernise and elevate their branding and website, while ensuring accessibility and their users were central to the work and our creative decisions. In addition, our second objective was to work closely with the senior leadership team to smooth the transition of their departing Marketing and Communications Manager Lara, and to make the organisation more self-sufficient through knowledge sharing and a template driven approach to basic marketing material.

our approach

The project work began with a through briefing and consultation process, both with the current Marketing and Comms Manager Lara, the charities CEO Dominic Ellison, and a focus group which included members of staff and service users.

Through researching accessibility and learning about the difficulties that individuals with visual impairments face, our strategy focused on creating a bold and minimal aesthetic, that uses illustration to represent their community and iconography to create easy to use sign posting and navigation throughout the website.

We also invited the senior management team to a ‘creative away day’ at the Future Leap to explore their wider challenges and see what could be done to support them across our full range of design and marketing services.

the outcome

The initial brand development work and website rebuild was a resounding success. The feedback from the entire staff team and their community was incredible, one of the leadership team even said, ‘that we finally have a brand that matches the quality of the work we deliver’.

The relationship has evolved to the point where we now act as a satellite creative department within the organisation, working closely with the entire senior leadership and their departments. Highlights include supporting the Business Services team with social media campaigns and animated explainer videos, rebranding Out & About which sits within youth services, and working closely with the CEO on creative strategy and the visual identity of their individual service units.

We’ve also incorporated a DIY design platform and an extensive range of marketing templates which has allowed their teams to produce basic marketing materials in-house.