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
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 a family of four colourways — blue-green, blue-pink, blue-purple, blue-yellow — each carrying a different emotional register while staying one brand
- Built the type system on Nunito to keep the tone warm rather than medical
- 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 the full system — logo usage, colourways, type, illustration style — in brand guidelines
How it went
Connections in Mind needed a brand that felt approachable and human — the kind of identity that makes mental health support feel less clinical and more like something you'd actually 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 — but to make it feel warm rather than medical. The result is a rounded, friendly mark that works in a range of colourways: blue-green, blue-pink, blue-purple, blue-yellow. Each colour carries a slightly different emotional tone while remaining recognisably the same brand.
The illustration library extended this thinking. A cast of 30+ custom characters — drawn in a loose, expressive style — gave the brand a way to communicate emotion, situation, and personality without stock photography. These weren't decorative; they were a core part of how the brand communicated.
The system was built for flexibility: every asset was exported in SVG and high-resolution PNG at both standard and 300ppi, ready for digital and print. The brand guidelines document codified the full system — logo usage, colourways, type, illustration style — so the identity could be applied consistently across every touchpoint.