Railpen

Keeping half-a-million rail pensions on track

Client

Railpen

Project

The Railpen Rebrand

Services

Art Direction, Brand Identity, Design

Sector

Financial Services

Keeping half-a-million rail pensions on track

The Brief

RPMI has recently adopted a business structure that both recognises the different industries in which they operate, yet also understands the power of an overarching brand. Simplifying their name to Railpen, which has strong recognition in the market, is part of this change. With new offices about to be designed and furnished and a new overarching purpose already agreed, it feels like the right time to refresh the brand to reflect this new sense of unity and strength.

Background

With a heritage going back 50 years, RPMI began life as the pensions office for the British Rail pension scheme in 1965. Now based across three sites in Coventry, Darlington and London they manage over £30bn in assets for 500,000 pension scheme members.

The Solution

The bulk of recognition is in their name, and to re-establish it as a singular overarching brand; we quickly gravitated to a simple, stable, wordmark—typography with a timeless, neutral, strength with a gentle nod to the rail industry. In contrast to this, the surrounding brand world evoked the sense of warmth and care uncovered during initial workshop sessions.

Keeping half-a-million rail pensions on track

The Brief

RPMI has recently adopted a business structure that both recognises the different industries in which they operate, yet also understands the power of an overarching brand. Simplifying their name to Railpen, which has strong recognition in the market, is part of this change. With new offices about to be designed and furnished and a new overarching purpose already agreed, it feels like the right time to refresh the brand to reflect this new sense of unity and strength.

With a heritage going back 50 years, RPMI began life as the pensions office for the British Rail pension scheme in 1965. Now based across three sites in Coventry, Darlington and London they manage over £30bn in assets for 500,000 pension scheme members.

RPMI has recently adopted a business structure that both recognises the different industries in which they operate, yet also understands the power of an overarching brand. Simplifying their name to Railpen, which has strong recognition in the market, is part of this change. With new offices about to be designed and furnished and a new overarching purpose already agreed, it feels like the right time to refresh the brand to reflect this new sense of unity and strength.

The bulk of recognition is in their name, and to re-establish it as a singular overarching brand; we quickly gravitated to a simple, stable, wordmark—typography with a timeless, neutral, strength with a gentle nod to the rail industry. In contrast to this, the surrounding brand world evoked the sense of warmth and care uncovered during initial workshop sessions.

Railpen logo.
video

A fixed point

Although we explored symbols and letter marks during the initial phases, there was a fairly pragmatic desire to put the power of the Railpen name front and centre. Of course the name, and their sector focus, meant that there needed to be some reference to rail, but even this needed to be restrained so as not to detract from the name itself. We enclosed the wordmark in simple rails to frame the word mark and provide a box-like solidity to the logo.
Railpen brand waveform with key message.
video
Railpen brand imagery.
Railpen London brand imagery.
Railpen office brand imagery.
Railpen brand magazine.
Railpen brand magazine, double page spread.
Railpen brand magazine, people double page spread.