ACT
Building a charity brand for the global stage



We evolved ACT, Ardonagh Community Trust, into a brand of its own, creating a distinctive verbal and visual identity that captures the spirit of opportunity behind The Ardonagh Group. The result is a bold digital experience that tells ACT’s story from the first act through to its latest fundraising efforts.
ACT is the registered charity from The Ardonagh Group, one of the world’s leading independent broker groups. It was launched in 2017 to channel its people’s spirit into causes that not only impact communities, society and the environment but reward people, too.
Our brief was to elevate the ACT brand, turning it into an independent identity with global reach. As part of this new brand strategy, we developed a focused digital presence for ACT that would help the brand to stand up on the global stage.
A brand that acts
We interviewed key stakeholders, reviewed ACT’s existing documentation and grant applications and performed audience research, looking at similar charitable organisations to discover how ACT stood out from the crowd – and how we could evolve it into a brand with a clear vision and voice.
One of the first things we noticed was the name – and how it was used by people close to the brand. The Ardonagh Community Trust is often described by its simple yet punchy acronym, ACT. We decided to lean into this language, leading with ACT, a name that clearly reflects its purpose.
ACT’s vision is rooted and defined by the Ardonagh people raising money for, volunteering in and advocating for their local communities. So when working on the digital development of ACT’s new brand, we focused the messaging on the human impact of its charitable work and the inspiring real stories behind it.
We also expanded the website’s content to include ACT’s latest efforts in the sustainability field and made the language work for the brand, with core pillars of charitable activity now being called “Actions”.
Clean and clear design
We wanted the ACT digital experience to have its own distinguishable brand identity. This needed to acknowledge and reflect its connection to The Ardonagh Group but feel independent.
We started by introducing elements to create ACT’s own unique style. We played with scale, bringing in lines and overlapping shapes and imagery. And we expanded the existing colour palette to make greater use of secondary colours across ACT’s “Actions”, which gave each pillar of ACT’s work its own identity.
When building this new brand experience for ACT, we also made subtle references to The Ardonagh Group by using a similar site structure and selecting images of real Ardonagh people.
The overriding goal of the website’s visual identity was clarity. Alongside the new colours and shapes, we always sought to maintain a clean and clear hierarchy of information across pages by leaning into the white space of the page. This reflected ACT as a brand with a clear, bold vision of its own.






The Ardonagh Group: a website with a human side
The Ardonagh Group
Creating a clear online presence



We elevated The Ardonagh Group’s website, refreshing the design and humanising the brand. Our aim was to re-engage the group’s investors and employees, create a feeling of momentum and reflect the group’s growing family of businesses.
One of the world’s leading independent brokers, The Ardonagh Group is an insurance distribution platform that acts as a meeting point for best-in-class entrepreneurial and specialist brands. Ardonagh is focused on growth and expanding its broad portfolio of businesses in the insurance sector. It needed a website to clearly reflect this momentum.
We were tasked with creating an online space that had to fulfil several functions. The website needed a space to share news and explain the nuances of its wide-ranging subsidiaries in the UK, Ireland and broader international markets. But Ardonagh wanted to do this without jeopardising clarity and website navigation. Most importantly, it had to engage investors and employees alike.
Light, bright and simple
As a large, evolving organisation, Ardonagh wanted to cut through the complexity of its portfolio. We ticked the practical boxes through a clear, easy-to-navigate experience with sections to explain what the company does, introduce the executive team, reveal the group’s latest news, provide financial information for investors and explain its portfolio by sector.
This simple structure is complemented by a palette of just a few colours that lean into the white space of the page, clear signposting through punchy copy, as well as large, beautiful photography to help tell Ardonagh’s story in a snapshot.
The people behind the portfolio
We used the website’s design to highlight the group’s core values, too. Ardonagh prides itself on being a family of like-minded entrepreneurial businesses. And these businesses are successful because of the people behind them.
We demonstrated that the group isn’t a large, faceless organisation by highlighting its human side. We used photography featuring real Ardonagh people in action to show investors and employees where the true driving force of the group comes from.








