What we delivered
- Brand identity
- Logo design
- Sub-brand system
- Brand guidelines
- Website refresh & UI improvements
- Stationery
- Signage & site boards
The project
Kings Oak came to us with a structural problem dressed up as a design one. The group had grown into several companies — Kingston Asset Management, Kannan Construction, Karter Management and Kings Oak Club — each with its own look, its own logo and its own idea of what the business stood for.
For a group whose pitch depends on taking a site from acquisition through construction to management and letting, brand confusion came at a commercial cost. Clients and partners could not see the whole capability, because nothing on the page told them it existed.
The parent first
We ran a series of interviews with key staff to understand what the group stands for. Those conversations settled it on four words — quality, trust, drive and innovation — and we used them as the test every design decision had to pass.
The mark sets KINGS OAK in a fine, widely tracked serif inside a linear device of crossing axes: structure drawn as line rather than illustrated as a tree. It reads as a surveyor’s drawing more than a logo. Deep petrol blue and off-white carry it, with a K monogram for small applications.
A system, not a logo
From there we built an identity system rather than a mark: a parent with enough authority to sit above the group, and a structure the sub-brands could slot into without losing the distinctness that made each one useful.
Each company keeps its own wordmark and a single line explaining what it does — Kingston manages assets, Kannan delivers construction to standard and to budget, Karter manages developments, Kings Oak Club handles short lets. Set together on one page, the range finally reads as one business with four capabilities rather than four businesses with one initial.
The applications
The system was then built out into the things the group actually hands over: letterhead, envelopes, business cards and a patterned document cover, staff passes carrying the line high-quality and high-end real estate, projecting signage, site boards and billboards.
The website
The website was refreshed and its interface tightened so the group’s range was legible in seconds rather than paragraphs. It leads on the proposition — creating and managing high quality developments in prime locations — over a wide view of the Thames, with the team, the buying process, the portfolio and current offers each given their own route in.
This project was delivered under the Ademchic brand.