Recognisably Barclays
Built only from the brand’s cyan and navy, and its typeface, Effra.
MarketingFrontiers25
Introduction
Watch the motionBarclays’ annual marketing conference. Two days. One venue. 500 industry professionals.
- Client
- Barclays
- Agency
- Oliver Agency
- Venue
- Convene, Sancroft, St Paul’s
- Scope
- Identity, motion, environmental graphics, print
- 01The briefFeel like Barclays. Signal something new.
- 02The ideaA frontier made of light, built from one dot.
- 03The systemTwo colours, one typeface, two layouts.
- 04MotionOne behaviour, re-timed for every screen.
- 05In the spacePlanned around how people move through the floor.
- 06Print and kitSmall things, same rules.
- 07OutcomeOne system, every surface.
Communitymatters.
The brief
The event is the only time in the year all Barclays’ marketing teams, external partners and agencies are in one place at the same time. It needs its own identity that respects the main brand, encourages experimentation, and supports the event theme.
Built to scale
One motif that holds at 20mm on a lanyard and across a full wall.
Made for the room
Planned around how delegates move through the venue, not around a logo.
Early ideas and exploration11 routes
ideas
02The idea
It starts with
one dot.
Multiply it.
A crowd.
A data field.
A city at night.
A community
made of light.
1 dot
Two colours.One typeface.So many dots.
Midnight#00004F
Electric#0900FE
Blue#0A6DFF
Cyan#00AEEF
Aqua#6FE8FF
Ice#DDFBFF
Colour
Constraint is the system. Navy holds the room, cyan carries the light, and opacity does the rest: overlapping dots build every tint in between without a single extra colour.
Marketing Frontiers — Barclays Effra Heavy Italic — Marketing Frontiers — Barclays Effra Heavy Italic —
Set tight — All caps — Leaning forward — Set tight — All caps — Leaning forward —
Main stageUltra-wide holding loop — 3840 × 1080
04Motion
The dots
never
sit still.
On screen the field drifts, gathers and parts to reveal content. One behaviour, re-timed for each moment.
Designed forthe room, notjust the screen.
In the space
Convene is warm timber, terrazzo and soft daylight. The navy was chosen to sit against it like a piece of joinery, and each format was planned around how people move through the floor rather than where a logo would fit.
01 / 04
Arrival
Entrance screens set the palette before a word is read.
Mockup — built in FigmaRegistration
Desk wrap, A–M and N–Z screens, lanyards and badges.
BuiltMain stage
Ultra-wide screens, lectern and speaker cue cards.
BuiltIn session
The room goes dark and the field becomes the light.
BuiltSmall things,same rules.
The pieces people hold get the same care as the pieces they walk past. Density scales with size, so a badge carries a handful of dots and a wall carries hundreds.
07Outcome
- 0Print formats
- 0Screen animations
- 0Digital banners
- 0Idea
A brand is most convincing when you can stand inside it. The work that mattered most here was the planning of surfaces, sightlines and sequence. Two days. One venue. 500 industry professionals. So many dots.