CASE STUDY

Raising the profile of an unsung hero

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity (SSAFA is an abbreviation of Soldiers, Sailors, Airman and Families Association) has been supporting the British Armed Forces, veterans and their families for over 135 years. They are the unsung heroes of the Armed Forces community – quietly going about their work powered by a dedicated and loyal volunteer network. 

I have been working alongside SSAFA for a number years helping them to create a more consistent, modern and engaging identity that embodies trust and forward thinking. my work for them has included logo design, brand guidelines, creative and art direction.

Services

• Logo design

• Brand guidelines

• Print design

• Digital design

• Photography

• Overall creative direction

The problem

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity was founded in 1885 but not many people know about the great work that they do. The charity needed to raise it’s profile in a big way to compete for eyeballs and donations in a crowded sector.

The mission

The charity needed to create an overall visual identity that gave a gentle nod to the organisations long-standing heritage but also engage with a younger audience for it to remain relevant now and for future generations.

The outcome

I helped to re-focus the main logo replacing the confusing strap line to something which easily understood. A complete overhaul of the visual identity and a refresh of all marketing and fundraising collateral both on and offline.

The impact

The charity now has a strong, cohesive and consistent visual identity that confidently speaks to its clients, engages with its volunteers and a powerful tool for successful awareness raising and fundraising activity.

Visual identity

Laying strong foundations – The logo, brand guidelines,
photography style and website.

The logo

The first focus in my role within SSAFA was to tweak the existing logo so it would be clearer for people to understand what SSAFA does. The abbreviation of SSAFA needed to remain and so did the main logo type. A tricky assignment that was solved by removing the existing strap line and replacing it with a new descriptor ‘the Armed Forces charity’. This statement clearly describes what type of organisation SSAFA are and the cohort of people they support. The ‘Armed Forces’ is bolded to further emphasis this point and a colour bar represents the three Armed Forces – Navy blue: The Royal Navy, Red: The British Army, Blue: Royal Air Force.

Brand guidelines

A new set of visual guidelines were created to give in-house staff, agencies and freelancers a design platform to adhere to. These guidelines ensure all of SSAFA’s creative work remains consistent, authoritative and confident. A new headline style was developed with a key-line around the copy with a line directing towards the logo in the bottom – the idea behind this device was that no matter what situation you find yourself in you can turn to SSAFA for help.

A new secondary colour palette was developed to allow greater flexibility for design and creative with different colour representing different services and functions SSAFA provides.

Photography

SSAFA is a people charity, so photography has played a huge part in the way I have developed the brand identity. People are used as much as possible in the images. They bring warmth and emotion to the brand.

To make sure all the communications are varied and interesting, I chose five possible image styles to choose from; Editorial, still life, portraits, fundraising and epic.

The website

I worked closely with the internal digital team and an external agency to develop the new website for SSAFA. Advising on design and brand decisions as well image selection throughout the site. The final result has seen bounce rates decrease significantly against the old site and improved the overall user journey allowing visitors to find what they need quicker and easier. 


ssafa.org.uk

Putting it all into action

Bringing the new visual identity to life through design.

Impact report

Each year SSAFA takes the opportunity to create an Impact report to demonstrate the vital work they do for their beneficiaries. The report is a great way to showcase great stories, stats, and trends from the past year in a creative and engaging way. The report is used by fundraisers as a quick guide to show potential supporters how SSAFA is making a positive impact to the people it serves.

Using the design principles that had already been developed I was able to bring the report to life with the use of lots of case study photography and  combining key stats in interesting ways. For the cover design I decided to create a six page fold-out that gets straight to the important numbers of the past year. 

Despatches

A key piece of work for the internal team is a twice yearly newsletter for all volunteers at SSAFA. The old format was very functional and rigid so the team wanted to give the newsletter a complete overhaul. This included a name change from ‘SSAFA News’ – does what it says on the tin approach to a snapper title – ‘Despatches’. I worked with the team to whittle down the recommended names. ‘Despatches’ refers to a term used in the British military ‘A Mention in Despatches is an operational gallantry award given to all ranks for an act (or acts) of bravery during active operations’.

Next we decided to turn the newsletter into a magazine and therefore giving the overall design a more consumer feel. The combo of nice clean bold headers with great photography really helps to make the magazine come to life. It is a hugely popular piece of work for the team which gives the volunteer network an insight what is going on nationally within the organisation. Despatches is now also used by fundraisers to up date their supporters on a regular basis.

Raising awareness

Increasing SSAFA’s profile with engaging content. 

Forcesline campaign

Forcesline, is a free and confidential telephone helpline and email service that provides support for serving (regulars and reserves), ex-Forces and their families. It is a vital service which continually needs raise awareness within military publications and across all of SSAFA’s digital platforms.

Above shows examples of a printed press advert created during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, a digital motion ad, and a carousel advert for Facebook. The concept gently asks a common question to the viewer about subjects based upon the main issues raised by people who contact Forcesline; debt, addiction, and family separation. The aim of the ad campaign was to encourage people that are struggling to pick up the phone or email Forcesline and get the help they require. This has been achieved perfectly with the considerate copy lines and use of bold main headlines which pop against the contrasting greyscale photography.

Volunteer recruitment campaign

With ever increasing demand for support from veterans within local communities SSAFA needs to be able to keep up with this demand by recruiting more volunteers to deliver services to veterans in need,

A targeted marketing campaign was needed to persuade people with extra time on their hands to help SSAFA deliver support on ground within their local area. The campaign idea was to show current volunteers doing great work and highlight how they use their time to make a difference.

I used a graphical reference of a clock to anchor the idea around with copy lines moving around it for the paid Facebook advertising (Top left). Adverts were also placed in local publications. The overall launch of the campaign was via SSAFA Instagram account with a grid takeover (top right).

Armed Forces Week

Each year the Armed Forces is celebrated throughout the country providing a great opportunity for SSAFA to communicate to a wider audience on a national stage. For the last two years I have been asked to great the creative direction for the campaigns. This involved designing large 48 posters to social media event graphics and everything in between. I used this as an opportunity to show flexibility within the visual identity guidelines to push the boundaries with the direction without taking the ideas too far ‘off brand’.

Fundraising

Finding new supporters and securing donations for vital work. 

Challenge events

Challenge events are a fun way to fundraise for a cause you believe in whist challenging yourself at the same time. From marathons to bike rides and from tough mudders to hikes. I created a set of adverts to show the diversity of challenges available to help raise money for SSAFA. After carefully choosing photography from previous years I set about finding fun headlines to use alongside the designs.

Christmas appeal

At Christmas many charities send appeals to raise money and find new supporters. In December 2019 I was asked to help the internal fundraising team to bring a families emotive story into a compelling direct marketing pack. The pack needed to tell the complete story of how a young family went from despair to repair thanks to help of SSAFA. This was achieved with the combination of elements within the pack telling the whole story from the outer envelope, letter, lift leaflet and donation form.

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