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Celebrating a Decade of Interdisciplinarity

For more than a century the University of Birmingham (UoB) has challenged and developed inquisitive minds that in turn have created impactful research and solutions to some of life's most pressing challenges across culture and society, human health, welfare, global economies and the environment.

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Then, ten years ago, the Global Innovation and Institute of Advanced Studies (IGI-IAS) department was established. Its purpose was to combine expertise from across the university in order to inspire, support and deliver world-leading, multidisciplinary research.

To celebrate a decade of expertise and achievement, IGI-IAS team wanted to create a new brand identity and promotional video and we were thrilled to be chosen to deliver the project. Having worked with UoB on a number of branding projects previously this felt like a perfect fit for Barques.

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Discovering interdisciplinarity

Through a bespoke discovery session with the IGI-IAS team, Barques began the process of understanding what interdisciplinarity is and how the IGI-IAS teams work together to create a cross-disciplinary approach to thinking and research. Also understanding what success looked and felt like for the team were key.

What emerged from these in depth discussions were a number of themes including decade, collaboration, range of disciplines, iteration, unlocking solutions and ripple effect.

These were brought to life as symbols and were then used in the development of a brand identity.

The brand identity

The identity features patterned concentric rings, one for each discipline and three solid rings in red, blue and yellow that represent the strong foundation that the university provides.

A colour palette and a range of graphic patterns have been introduced to give recognition and identity to each discipline and the important work they do.

All of the themes work together to create a striking animated identity that could then be used across the institute's marketing and digital channels.

In addition, the elements were brought together to create a striking video for the launch which the team loved and felt that it captured the essence of the institute perfectly.

“Barques really took the time to understand our requirements, and prompted us to think about our brief in ways we had never originally considered. The end result was something that we would have never come up with ourselves, but at the same time felt so perfectly suited to the project that we immediately knew we had the right solution.”

David Evans, Head of Projects and Partnerships (IGI-IAS)

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