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Mental Health & Coaching

Connections in Mind

A playful, multi-coloured brand identity built around a brain and a cast of characters.

My role
Brand lead: identity, illustration system, guidelines
Brand IdentityLogo DesignIllustrationCharacter DesignBrand Guidelines
Early brand concept: 'Feeling boxed in?' campaign application

The brief

A cognitive coaching and mental health organisation whose audience includes children and families. Clinical-looking branding was a barrier to the people it most needed to reach, and stock photography couldn't carry the range of situations and emotions the content covered.

What I did

  • Designed the brain mark and four colourways (blue-green, blue-pink, blue-purple, blue-yellow), each with a different emotional tone while staying one brand
  • Built the type system on Nunito to keep the tone warm
  • Drew a library of 30+ custom characters in a loose, expressive style, so the brand could show emotion and situation without stock photography
  • Exported every asset in SVG and high-resolution PNG at standard and 300ppi, so the team could use it in digital and print without coming back to me
  • Documented logo usage, colourways, type and illustration style in brand guidelines
Brand illustration system: shapes and character elements
The CiM brain logo mark
CiM logo on brand blue background
CiM blue-pink colour variant
CiM blue-purple colour variant
CiM character illustration: celebration
Final brand poster: It's not you, it's your brain

How it went

Connections in Mind needed an approachable, human brand that made mental health support feel less clinical and more like something you'd want to engage with. I designed the full visual system: a brain-based logo mark, a family of colour variants, a typography system built on Nunito, and a library of 30+ custom character illustrations.

The logo brief was to lead with the brain, the obvious metaphor for a mental health and cognitive coaching brand, while keeping it warm. The result is a rounded, friendly mark that works in four colourways: blue-green, blue-pink, blue-purple and blue-yellow. Each has a slightly different emotional tone and is still clearly the same brand.

The illustration library took the same approach further. A cast of 30+ custom characters, drawn in a loose, expressive style, let the brand show emotion, situation and personality without stock photography. The characters do much of the brand's communicating.

Every asset was exported in SVG and high-resolution PNG at standard and 300ppi, ready for digital and print. The brand guidelines cover logo usage, colourways, type and illustration style, so the team can apply the identity consistently wherever it appears.