Harley Academy
Harley Academy are the UK's largest postgraduate training provider in aesthetic medicine. Their objective is to raise educational standards for injectables and cosmetic dermatology treatments.
Overview
Aesthetic practices are largely unregulated in the UK. The Department of Health has cited that '...dermal fillers are a crisis waiting to happen.' In fact, 934 of 937 complaints made to Save Face in 2019 were in regards to unregistered practitioners. What drew us to Harley Academy was their steadfast determination to fix this. Their be all and end all is to radically improve patient safety. How? By creating a pioneering level 7 qualification mapped to Health Education England guidelines for a start. Their approach is innovative and features a tech-focused online learning system, further boosting their forward-thinking credentials. Harley Academy are driven to make the aesthetics ecosystem responsible, accountable and collaborative whilst ending all unregulated practices.
Services
Brand Strategy, Brand Positioning + Planning, Brand Audits + Guardianship, Visual + Verbal Identity Design, Web Design, Copywriting + Messaging, Marketing Strategy, Print + Digital Design, Photography.
The Challenge
- Harley Academy came to us to help them define their brand and set them apart as an ethical pioneer in an industry whose reputation treads the edges of moral and social responsibility.
- They wanted to create a visual identity that simultaneously represented education, prominence, tech and aesthetics. No mean feat!
- They were keen to disrupt the aesthetics of the aesthetics industry (see what we did there?) by promoting an authentic vision of beauty.
- It was important to position Harley Academy as leaders in their field in order to weather growing competition.
Barefaced Solution
- Following a big dose of market research we set about re-positioning the company branding. We needed to change the way people think about aesthetics in order to get them on board with Harley Academy’s mission. We rejected the clinical and cold aesthetics typical of medical brands and avoided the cliched look/feel common within the field of plastic surgery and aesthetics. Instead, we created a brand identity that cuts through a stale industry mired with criticism. The anchor of the new identity was a simple yet compelling message; ‘Aesthetics with integrity’. We then focused on humanising the world of aesthetics whilst promoting reassurance in the brand for both practitioners and their clients.
- A big shift needed a brave idea. Welcome to the revolution. The new Harley Academy flips the conventions of the aesthetics industry on its head. We stripped away all of the stale impersonal stuff and reimagined the company as a forward-thinking beacon of education. Taking inspiration from British collegiate universities and iconic keyboard symbols we were able to create a set of logos that seamlessly combined prestige, education and tech. Then we backed it all up with a visual identity that harnesses Harley Academy’s spirit of compassion and quality.
- We developed a photographic identity centered proudly on the beauty in human difference. Galvanized by a desire to bring a more honest approach to the industry the photographic work focused on enhancement rather than concealment. This was a chance to make a statement; that Harley Academy unapologetically stands for ethical practices in the aesthetic arena.
- We created a visual identity that stands out above their peers. This bold new look is confident and authoritative whilst retaining an obvious warmth that sets it apart. A comprehensive set of guidelines accompanied the new identity to act as a driver for every part of their business. This has allowed them to bring their unique character to new regions quickly and effectively, helping them to rapidly grow their business.
AESTHETICS WITH INTEGRITY
Harley are industry disruptors, so it made sense to go against the stale brand strategies prevalent within this market. Harley Academy needed a revolution to help them scale-up and to give them strength to change an entire industry.
The re-envisioned Harley Academy brand manages to tread a delicate line between conveying their professional standing, alongside their friendly nature and forward-thinking approach. Neither stuffy nor brash, we’ve created an identity that works fluidly across the different parts of their business and stands out like a beacon of light among an industry whose image has largely stagnated.
Their new photographic identity was galvanized by Harley’s desire to bring a more humanistic look to the industry. We chose ‘real models’ of various ages from a range of ethnic backgrounds to achieve a campaign that was inclusive and diverse. We then opted for a editing process that focused on natural skin tones and textures, and avoided unrealistic airbrushing, to create a direction centered proudly on the beauty in human difference. The illustrative identity followed suit, using warm tones inspired by skin with bolder injections of bright colours taken from the brand palette. Very little use of linear borders created a soft abstract effect, whilst subtle brush strokes were used to created the illusion of skin-like texture. The result is an identity that manages to appear ethical, forward-thinking and educational.