UnitedUs present a trio of brands for trusted healthcare partner Cambridge Healthcare Research

After doubling their employee numbers during the pandemic, leading research business Cambridge Healthcare Research asked the team at UnitedUs to look at their business structure and find a route forward for them to grow at pace, engage new audiences and progress into working in the US. Whilst a branding project isn’t always straightforward, developing a family brand is no mean feat either. The strategy the Brighton studio delivered can be explained in three parts; move CHR to a parent company allowing for growth; create Solici from scratch to take on CHR’s workload; and give Vox.Bio a dynamic rebrand to speak to a faster-paced audience. 

The resulting group brand is spearheaded by the overarching CHR identity, tied together with a unifying thread: ‘The Power of Knowing.’ A typographic drive brings this concept to life with the help of the Bw Darius family. At the forefront is the display version Darius Stencil, supported by Darius as the body font and Neue Haas Grotesk as a secondary font. “We picked the Bw Darius family as it was an entirely modern riff on a very classic serif,” Co-founder & Creative Partner Luke Taylor explains. “It has a high x-height, which means it works extremely well at display sizes as well as being versatile enough to carry academic writing.”

The stencil, according to Taylor, “perfectly reflects the theme of the citation motif used to anchor the CHR brand, suggesting that the detail is in the gaps and it is here that CHR uncovers their insights.” To reflect the understated authority of parent company CHR, the chosen colours are pared-back and refined, allowing the brand to sit comfortably with the vibrant and dynamically-coloured sibling businesses. As Taylor summarises, “the colour palette of classic corporate navy and cream paired with a bold orange gives the brand the energetic stature to lead the group of businesses.” 

CHR’s new division Solici required a unique tone that would differentiate it from the rest of the family. Inspired by the Latin name for the sun, ‘solis,’ UnitedUs added the intelligence acronym ‘CI’ as a suffix. A guiding light in the industry category, Solici helps healthcare decision-makers to illuminate blindspots and find the insights they don’t already know. “Solici was the newly named and formed entity within the CHR business portfolio. The bulk of CHR’s work had been formed into this new entity. Therefore it needed to feel established and experienced whilst also reflective of its new, dynamic energy in the market.” 

Therefore, guided by the brand concept of ‘bringing opportunities to light,’ UnitedUs created a multifaceted interpretation. On one hand, the ‘O’ of Solici is used as a window; reminiscent of the sun, a spotlight, or a petri dish. On the other hand, the use of colour – light and dark, gradients – plays on this theme of illumination, from dark to light. “With our message of ‘bringing opportunity to light,’” Taylor notes, “it's important we reinforced that throughout the visualisation, the navy gives the foundational colour to amplify the beauty of the natural world that's shown at a microscopic level.” For the typography, Display’s Tobias Regular is used as the display font, while Neue Haas Grotesk returns for the body copy, retaining consistency between the brands. 

“Vox.Bio was a newly formed business when we came into the project to deliver a strategic rebrand,” Taylor recalls of the CHR project. “The Vox.Bio brand had gained traction even with its short time in the market, therefore we wanted to continue building on this brand with an evolutionary change.” Operating within a fast-paced market, Vox.Bio delivers answers quickly to inform business decisions, therefore giving clients the confidence to drive their pursuits forward. The leading brand element here is an unmissable ‘X.’ “The idea of the ‘X’ marks the spot,” Taylor tells us, “symbolises that moment of clarity within the research process when Vox.Bio defines the piece of killer information that opens opportunities.” This concept underpins the whole identity, flowing through both visual and verbal communication. 

UnitedUs

Cambridge Healthcare Research

Solici

Vox.Bio