A new identity for The Forest of Biologists

This project has been assigned the following categories: Brand development,

Brand guidelines
Social media graphics
Happy client

Client overview

The Forest of Biologists is an initiative by The Company of Biologist to plant trees in the UK and to have a positive environmental impact. The core content for the project is simple: to plant or preserve a tree for every paper that is published in a The Company of Biologists journal.

Project overview

The Company of Biologists tasked us with creating the brand identity for their new project, The Forest of Biologists. We developed a comprehensive brand identity that included a logo, color palette, typography, and style guide. We also created marketing materials for social channels, flyers, and PowerPoint presentations.

The brand identity we created is visually appealing and engaging. It is also consistent across all touchpoints, ensuring that The Forest of Biologists has a strong and recognisable brand. The marketing materials we created are effective in promoting the project and its mission.

We are proud of the work we did on The Forest of Biologists brand identity. We believe it is a strong and effective brand that will help The Company of Biologists achieve its goals.

Initial exploration

The following images display some of the initial concepts our designers created for the identity. As you can see, we provided 12 options for the project team to consider. The array of options sparked interesting debate about which one was the most suitable option.

One of the biggest challenges was how to best represent a forest in a logo. A single tree doesn’t show the scale of a forest, so we needed to find a way to represent the forest as a whole.

We considered a variety of options, including using a silhouette of a forest, using a combination of trees and leaves, and using a single leaf. Ultimately, we decided to use multiple leaves as the basis for our logo.

Four logo concepts for The Forest of Biologists project (part 1)

Four logo concepts for The Forest of Biologists project (part 2)

Four logo concepts for The Forest of Biologists project (part 3)

Final logo

We chose the concept of the splayed leaves because it is a simple and elegant representation of a forest. The leaf also has a number of symbolic meanings, including growth, renewal, and hope.

We designed the leaf to be abstract and stylised, so that it would be recognisable even at small sizes. We also added veins to the leaf to further clarify its shape.

The colours of the logo represent the different phases of leaf abscission, the process of leaves falling. The green colour fades to reveal the yellow and orange carotenoid pigments. The combination of these colours creates a vibrant but grounded identity. It is well balanced without being garish.

Affinity with The Company of Biologists

Although distinctly different, the final The Forest of Biologists identity has a strong affinity with The Company of Biologists. The colours and shapes of the logo are reminiscent of The Company of Biologists' existing branding, while the abstract nature of the logo allows it to stand on its own.

We believe that the final logo is a strong and effective representation of The Forest of Biologists project. It is a logo that is both visually appealing and meaningful, and we are confident that it will help to raise awareness of the project and its mission.

A forest is not a forest without trees

The project team wanted the virtual forest to look and feel like a real forest. To achieve this, they focused on developing realistic tree illustrations.

The team initially selected ten UK tree species to launch with. They later added six more trees to the collection

Brand guidelines

To ensure that the brand identity is consistent across all marketing materials and supplementary work, we created brand guidelines. The guidelines cover everything from the minimum logo sizes, how to use the leaf icon, to in-depth explanations of the tree illustrations usage and rules around digital marketing and the application of certain elements.

Brand guidelines for The Forest of Biologists

We also created an A6 flyer, PowerPoint slides, web banners and collateral for social media channels — ranging from covers and profile pictures to graphics that accompany posts.