Putting people at the heart of a data business.
Illion Brand Values Platform
Illion had grown by bringing together several different technology businesses. With people coming from different organisations and cultures, the challenge was to create one shared identity people could genuinely connect with.
The values already existed. The opportunity was to turn them from corporate language into something human — something people could recognise themselves in rather than simply words they were asked to remember.
That led to The Human Behind the Data — a creative platform that brought warmth, personality and emotion to a data-driven business, turning abstract values into characters, stories and behaviours people could relate to.
I set the overall creative vision and led a multidisciplinary team of designers and illustrators to bring the platform to life — creating a clear framework for the work while giving each person the freedom to bring their own ideas and craft to it.
The result was a distinctive creative world that could grow across the organisation while still feeling like one shared expression of Illion’s culture.
One shared idea. Many creative voices. A culture people could see themselves in.
-
The values were already defined. The challenge was making people connect with them.
After years of growth and acquisition, Illion was bringing together people from different businesses, backgrounds and existing cultures under one identity.
Simply communicating a new set of values wasn’t going to create that connection. They needed to feel relevant to the people being asked to live them.
We found the creative opportunity in the contrast at the heart of Illion itself: behind a business built on data were thousands of individual people.
That became The Human Behind the Data — an expressive illustrated world that gave the values personality, warmth and character, making abstract ideas easier to understand, remember and relate to.
Turn the values from something people read into something they could feel part of.
-
My role was to set the direction clearly without designing every answer myself.
I established the central creative idea, visual principles and art direction so everyone understood the world we were creating and what needed to hold it together.
From there, I worked closely with the designers and illustrators, giving them enough structure to protect the idea while leaving enough freedom to bring their own strengths, personalities and craft to the work.
As the platform developed, I reviewed, challenged and refined the creative with the team — keeping an eye on the bigger picture and making sure individual expressions continued to feel part of one coherent world.
The result was richer because different people had genuine ownership of it.
Set a clear vision. Then give good people the space to take it further.
-
The idea needed to work far beyond the original set of values.
Each value had its own personality and story, but the underlying creative principles gave the team a consistent language they could continue to build from.
That allowed the world to expand across internal communications, environmental design, events, merchandise and other employee touchpoints without every execution needing to be reinvented.
Different designers could contribute. Different formats could behave differently. New expressions could emerge. But everything still felt unmistakably part of the same idea.
The result wasn't simply a values campaign. It was a flexible visual and verbal platform that gave Illion a more human way to express its culture.
Strong enough to stay coherent. Open enough to keep evolving.
MY ROLE
Senior Art Director / Creative Lead
Creative vision & direction
Brand platform development
Concept development
Art direction
Team leadership
Designer & illustrator direction
Creative feedback & mentoring
Visual identity system
Internal communications
Environmental design
Events & merchandise
Rollout & implementation
Art direction reference
Illustration style development
-
Creative concept, art direction, brand identity direction, visual language development and values storytelling.
-
Agency: BMF
Client: Illion
Design: Matthew Hughes
Illustration: Matthew Hughes