Magnetic
Creative Director: Andy Lewis
Designers: Emma Sokell, Jacob Everett, Miki Chiu, Sam Pickering, Kit Truman, Natasha Maiselman, Nahal Marzban.
#Brand Design #Visual Identity
Building a brand that people actually want to work with
This wasn’t just about fixing a logo or changing some colours; it was about finally making Magnetic look and feel like the people who work here. We moved away from a cold, dark, big consultancy vibe and opened everything up — using lots of white space, an ownable colour palette, custom illustration, and real, messy, human photography.
We needed to build a brand that didn't just sit in a PDF, so we created a system that everyone — from our consultants to our finance team — could actually use and feel proud of. By making our decks easy to build (self-service) and our stories easy to tell, the brand became a natural part of how we worked every day.
That shift in culture and clarity had a massive impact. Over two and a half years, it helped us win the right kind of clients and eventually led to Magnetic being acquired by Newton for £8 million. They didn’t just buy our services; they bought the way we use design and storytelling to make complex things feel human. It’s proof that when you build a brand that stays true to its people, the business value follows.
Capturing the culture
When I looked at where Magnetic was a few years ago, there was a strange gap between who we were and how we looked. We’re an innovation consultancy that lives by the motto "start by starting." We work side-by-side with our clients, often in the messy trenches of their businesses. But our brand at the time felt like it was trying to be a trendy consultancy: it was dark, heavy, and a bit cold. It didn't reflect the "heart on our sleeves" personality of our team.
My goal was to overhaul the identity to be "Human-First"—opening it up with white space, a friendly palette, and a tone that felt more like a partner and less like a vendor.
Leading the orchestra
One of the most rewarding parts of this project was the sheer variety of talent I got to lead. At any given time, I was directing a multidisciplinary group of anywhere from 2 to 14 people — graphic designers, UX specialists, service designers, illustrators, and video editors.
Because we tackle such diverse problems for our clients, the brand had to be a "north star" that everyone could follow, regardless of their craft. I worked closely with my lead designer, Emma Sokell, to develop a visual system that was flexible enough for clean UI, brash marketing campaigns, and great storytelling in our slideware and editorial content.
The toolkit: brand colours
We didn't just pick colours; we picked a personality. We moved into a "lighter" world using Magnetic Blue and Magnetic Mint as our primary anchors. To make sure we could handle complex infographics, illustrations, and various sub-brands with variety, we introduced a tertiary palette of bright Magentas and Oranges.
Designing for non-designers
A brand is only as good as the people using it. Magnetic has 70+ consultants who are out in the field every day, and they can't always wait for a designer to beautify a deck.
To solve this, we focused heavily on the Google Workspace ecosystem. We chose Google-friendly fonts and built exhaustive "Self-Service" templates. These weren't just standard text slides; we built custom diagram styles for innovation theory, project playback slides, and financial charts. It meant that a consultant in the research team could create a document that looked just as "Magnetic" as something coming out of the design studio.
Real people, real work
We made a conscious decision to ban any corporate stock photography. No more "fake smiles" or "staged photoshoots" Instead, we empowered our team to capture the real work.
Our guidelines now celebrate the "in-between" moments: Post-it notes on a wall, marker pens on a whiteboard, and teams huddled around a desk in situ. Whether we’re in a Waitrose store or on a building site at Fulham Pier, our consultants are encouraged to take live photography of the project. By dropping these candid photos into our pre-vetted templates, our playback decks feel like a real reflection of a partnership, not just a polished delivery.
The result: a cultural asset
To make sure this stuck, we didn't just hit "send" on a PDF. We ran onboarding sessions for every member of the staff, showing them how to use the brand to tell better stories.
Over the last two and a half years, this system has done exactly what it was meant to do: it made our work more understandable and our culture more visible. When we were eventually acquired by Newton, their board specifically mentioned that they loved the "Magnetic vibe." They respected our design maturity and our ability to turn cluttered, dense information into human stories as a major asset.
Building this brand wasn't just a design project; it was about creating the "visual soul" of a company that was eventually valued at £8 million.
Campaign collection - flexibility
The following socials show how adaptable the brand system was. With a few tweaks, we could create standalone campaigns with their own feel, adapted for digital, print and physical spaces (e.g. social posts, large campaigns, in-office experience and events) that always remained part of the master brand family.
