Oasis
Taking and making opportunity
The Oasis Trust is one of the biggest not-for-profits in the UK. They oversee many academy schools, healthcare, housing, college, churches, volunteering projects and overseas work. This continues to be a very exciting brand to work with.
Brief: Oasis has operated for nearly 25 years; it is a large, entrepreneurial, diverse and enthusiastic organisation. As Oasis has grown it had mixed different brand models that had become confusing. The client wanted to restructure as one integrated organisation, bringing together all the elements under one brand whilst still retaining the enterprising attitude set by their founder Steve Chalke.
Solution: The initial steps on the project were research with its leadership team and audiences including students and local communities in the UK and abroad. ABA led a series of strategic brand workshops created to engage people and their engagement with Oasis. There were many passionate conversations and debates as we challenged the brand models and suggested a simplified monolithic approach.
‘Opportunity’ was our uniting thought. This essence sums up who Oasis are and gives everyone a clear starting point to communicate from. Following this we worked on proposition and brand architecture. We created a visual brand world for Oasis so everyone could understand where their project or program fitted.
Our design team developed a solution called ‘windows of opportunity’ this formed the structure for all graphic design and logo type creation. The ‘window of opportunity’ visually allows stories to be told. Templated guidelines were designed making it easy to create publications and marketing. We have overseen the brands full integration into Oasis Academies learning space environments with unique partnerships between client, architect and brand consultants.
ABA continues to work with Oasis across new academies and hubs throughout the UK, our brand behaviours work has been key in establishing the brand across the large teams that make up the Oasis family.
