Connolly

The background

Connolly Ltd is a family construction firm with a clearly focused view of its role in the world. The company is in business to inspire its people, customers and the wider construction industry. It aims to put people at the heart of its activities, to create communities and to dare to be different.

Through recent years Connolly Ltd has grown and developed quickly – and the team had become aware that the company’s branding was in need of development to match this growth and ambition.

Our services

Design studio

How we helped

Branding design & development
Graphic design
Website design
Project management

The challenge

Although Connolly’s vision is very clear and specific, the company’s evolution had led to some confused representation of the different construction sectors that the business is involved in. Connolly Ltd asked us to rebrand their website and internal and external marketing communication collateral with this issue in mind.

The company’s marketing efforts were uncoordinated too, to the extent that internal and external stakeholders found it difficult to differentiate between Connolly’s three areas of activity and expertise – Housing, Build and Development.

The solution

Work had already been completed on the Connolly logo, so our job was to create a new comprehensive, in-depth set of brand guidelines. This was to include separate look and feel definitions for the three business strands under the Connolly Ltd umbrella. The priority for us was to ensure that proposals and marketing collateral should be strong and consistent.

We opted to use strong colours and a distinctive illustrative style to flag Housing, Build and Development areas to clearly identify each business, and graphically reference its construction sector. A simple geometric repeating pattern echoing a building’s structure was also part of the design. This helps provide a Connolly Ltd ‘family’ feel for the three identities.

Relative’s branding solution delivers a comprehensive and well-considered identity package for Connolly Ltd:

It clearly defines the three different streams sitting under the Connolly Ltd brand – Housing, Build and Development
Use and creation of illustration, colours and patterns helps to visually differentiate these three streams
An in-depth brand guidelines document clearly explains the differences and uses of assets
An easy to apply tone of voice guide is included Connolly Ltd’s strong people-focus is reflected in the widespread use of photos showing the Connolly team, and the end users who benefit from their work

The results

Our work has given Connolly Ltd clear and coherent branding on their website, using striking visuals and cues that make for an excellent user experience. Each website page is clearly branded to showcase the Housing, Build and Development sectors, making it quick and easy for users to access the information they want.

Our brand guidelines document gives staff easy to use tools and information to improve internal communications and external marketing efforts, helping support the company in the next stage of its growth. The clear and concise branding document also frees people to focus on higher value tasks for the organisation.

Customer testimonial

People say the nicest things...

We’re not bigheads, show-offs or own-trumpet-blowers. There’s no need to be.
Not when our clients have such kind things to say about us.

Chris Connolly, Commercial Director - Connolly

The brand development work that Relative completed for us was great and has been instrumental in helping us define the various business streams of our company. By centralising all this information into our brand guidelines document we have been able to roll out a new communication process to the internal team. And they have a clear understanding of how the company needs to be marketed and any external communications should be completed.