Reinventing the Brand!

As 10-year anniversary celebrations continue for Devon innovator The Outdoors Group, the business has revealed compelling new branding.

While the original branding neatly portrayed nature and innovation, the team felt that a refreshed look could better convey the developments that have happened in the past decade.

The creative concept was sparked by a woodworking project when a home education learner split a log and carved a woodland animal head on to the six sections. It inspired the idea of six business pillars to provide a unique identity to the different strands of the business whilst contributing to a main logo conveying cohesion.

Marketing Manager, Katie Hawley said: “During the process we looked at our heritage, ethos and the way we’ve grown.

“For example, we believed it was important to pay tribute to the Scandinavian roots of Forest School incorporating Scandi patterns into each part of our new branding. At the same time we wanted to acknowledge our own native roots; our directors were particularly inspired by the Celtic carved stones that appear across the UK, with many examples not far from some of our sites on Dartmoor.”

In addition the new branding needed to retain a sense of the four core values set down when the group was founded - Play, Discover, Explore, Grow. “We are just as committed to these as we were ten years ago and don’t ever want to get so bogged down in bureaucracy that we lose sight of what matters. Time spent outside, time spent adventuring, time spent with our community.”

To bring the idea to life, The Outdoors Group brought in Exeter branding specialist, Buddy Creative. Creative partner, David Jones explained how they approached the project.

"Understanding The Outdoors Group, their goals, ambitions and audience was an essential process before developing our design solution, we worked closely with the team to distil this down to our design essence of ‘liberated learning’.

“The spirit of this is reflected in both the geometric animal characters we used to represent each pillar of the business and The Outdoors Group logo.”

With the group adding more and more sites for its forest schools and special schools along with training courses, experience days, holiday clubs and toddler groups, part of the rebranding exercise included a new website with clearer site navigation. Plus for the first time there’s an online shop offering a small range of branded items including beanies and backpacks.

Director Shevek Pring said: “We’re thrilled with our new look and believe it’s exactly right to help us step into our next decade as a diverse, community-centric group of people committed to getting folks of all ages outdoors, protecting our natural spaces, looking out for each other and doing what we know is right.”