The Baltic Rebrand

Services

Art Direction, Brand Identity, Brand Strategy, Copywriting, Design, Photography, Print Management, Web Development

Sectors

Digital & Technology, Health & Education

Energising tech apprenticeships

The Brief

Baltic felt that their brand world was was inconsistent, outdated and felt a touch too male focused. Taking the lead from our refreshed and refocused brand story, we needed to visually energise, modernise and boldly express the potential of Baltic apprenticeships.

Background

Baltic Training is a North East based apprentice and training provider focused on the IT and digital sector. They provide a completely tech-focused, tech-driven training solution backed up by an ethos of genuine care and a collaboration with one the world’s largest technology training providers.

The Solution

It is Baltic’s people and their passion that truly sets them apart from the competition. We wanted to express this by borrowing energetic and aspirational visual cues that would usually be seen in sports brands or consumer electronics. As well as communicating Baltic’s unique personality, we knew it was crucial to make technology apprenticeships look just as exciting as higher education.

Energising tech apprenticeships

The Brief

Background

The Brief

The Solution

Infinite potential

During the Discover phase we often heard that education on apprenticeships is often overlooked at schools and colleges, in favour of pushing people toward higher education. The result is a negative misconception that apprenticeships are either ‘second best’ or ‘a fall back’. By creating an imperative, aspirational strapline in BE THE FUTURE and a logo that echoed the infinite loop of the mobius strip, we wanted to reposition Baltic as a positive first choice.

Energise

We developed a suite of energies that could flow through Baltic’s brand world, positively charging layouts, adding dynamic movement and guiding attention. These different types of energy each reflected different apprenticeships, for instance the social media energy was made up of thousands of particles representing followers. All of the energy pathways are crops of the Baltic infinite potential symbol.

“Better are just awesome, if you’re looking to rebrand, you definitely need to consider these guys. From the moment we sat down with Mark Easby, Director and Founder of Better, I knew this was the right agency to go with. Up until now, our brand hasn’t reflected what we do at Baltic, and it doesn’t really have a relation to the new service we provide. For me, I wanted to use this rebrand to get the passion and enthusiasm that is presented by our employees daily, across to external customers, and Better picked up on this straight away. Better don’t just look at the cosmetics of a brand, they want to know who the company are, who are their employees, what do their employees think of the business, who are their customers? By gaining this much insight into our company, Better were able to uncover the essence and heart of our business and then used this to develop a brand to represent our values and mission. The knowledge, skill set and creativity that Better has is so inspiring, and I genuinely can’t thank them enough for helping develop our new brand.”

Brooke Hodgson

Marketing Manager, Baltic Training

Look to the future

Baltic’s audience is split equally between potential young apprentices and potential employers that could offer them a position. To amplify the sense of aspiration and potential we heroed the apprentices, leaning on almost propaganda style imagery. They were all posed to look to their future and lit dramatically so the energy flows could illuminate them in final artwork. The employers were shot with the same lighting set-up but, this time, they looked straight to camera as if they were welcoming new apprentices.