Price Forbes

Insurance is a people business. But in a competitive, niche market, brand matters

What we delivered

Market and competitive research

Stakeholder workshops and interviews

Brand strategy and identity

Brand and editorial guidelines

Brand templates and launch content

A new website

When the Ardonagh Group set out to streamline part of its Specialty portfolio under the Price Forbes name, consolidating four high-performing brands, it knew it needed a strong identity to capitalise on opportunities in the market and attract talent.

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London-based Price Forbes is an independent insurance broker with more than 100 years as the home of specialist broking. It already had a long, fascinating heritage and hard-hitting reputation, as well as a global reach and standing in North America.

But not all perceptions of the existing brand and culture were doing it justice. In particular, Price Forbes was determined to distance itself from some of the "old-school" clichés that abound in such a traditional industry.

Top of its game

We didn’t want to lose the pride and panache that comes with being a business at the top of its game. But we needed the brand to shout louder about the innovation and optimism we witnessed among Price Forbes people and in its way of doing business.

We wanted to honour the business’s history, balancing the strengths of the past with the opportunities of the future. We built a brand around the insight that Price Forbes is proud of its history – but not defined by it.

Making history

The big idea – making history – embraces the business’s distinctive heritage and pioneering reputation while presenting it as open and forward-facing, anticipating future innovation. It captures Price Forbes’s role in enabling clients to make history in their own way. It sets the stage for a confident, spirited tone of voice, and is a flexible linguistic device.

We defined a verbal identity that establishes Price Forbes’s heritage as a pioneering business while, in the same breath, positioning it as a future-ready organisation that is pushing for progress within the industry and empowering clients to break new ground.

A modern take

At the heart of the creative identity is a bold, differentiated take on typography, pairing a serif with a sans-serif font to capture the heritage while looking to the future. The serif font is a modern take on the classics and a nod to the progressive nature of Price Forbes.

We worked with font foundry Dalton Maag to refine the final logo, making sure the two fonts felt perfectly unified and the logo worked across all sizes.

Riccardo De Franceschi at Dalton Maag reflects:

“It was a pleasure to work with The Frameworks to craft a logo for this new, confident and refreshing brand. We worked within the creative parameters they had set, and collaborated closely with their team to refine the logo while maintaining its bold quality. We aimed to improve the cohesion between the “Price” and “Forbes” words, while maintaining the formal contrast that defined The Frameworks’ concept.”

‍Playful but refined

We continued that play between classic and modern through the vibrant and optimistic colour palette, which forefronts a rich dark blue and a warm yellow.

For the website, we created an editorial feel to match the spirit of the brand, with bold typography, interesting layouts and photography that reflects the modern outlook and diversity of the workforce. The end result is playful but refined.

Modern, creative and a little bit spirited; the visual and verbal identities work together to position Price Forbes as a sophisticated brand set to take on the future. And who wouldn’t want to be part of that?

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.

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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.

Let’s start a conversation

Price Forbes

The Ardonagh Group: a website with a human side

The Ardonagh Group