PHD launches new global visual identity

Global media network PHD, part of Omnicom Media Group, unveiled a new brand mark and refreshed identity to reflect its philosophy ‘Make the Leap.’ The brand ethos is a call to leverage the power of imagination to drive growth for its clients’ business.

The updated brand identity, created in collaboration with independent design director, Cosmo Jameson, has been designed with digital, motion, and audio capabilities in mind. The brief was to convey the imaginative leaps PHD takes in creativity to help its clients flourish.

“It’s the visual theme of duality, along with ‘the leap’, that drives an ownable visual language throughout the identity, defining brand imagery and film but most noticeable in the brand mark which has been recrafted as an ambigram,” Jameson says.
 
The wordmark was in fact designed to encompass a sense of kinetic energy. As it rotates in symmetry, it conveys its ambigram qualities, but when it’s static, it seems as if it’s about to begin moving at any time.
 
The new visual system centres around PHD’s brand values of creativity, courage, openness, collaboration and curiosity, which are reflected in both the brand imagery and accompanying film. By showing the duality of a world reimagined from one state to another through visual lateral leaps, PHD aims for viewers to feel the brand values.

“Our new identity is strategically designed with digital and motion in mind to reflect how we work today as well as being a symbol of our ethos. The brand mark is dynamic and flexible, capable of making a physical leap itself to trigger imagery or film and reveal a world reimagined,” says Avril Canavan, worldwide CMO at PHD.