Founded in 2004, Discovery is Ireland’s leading intercultural choir. They have performed with some of the world’s greatest artists among whom are Stevie Wonder, Imelda May & Sinead O’Connor.
They are made up of 30 different nationalities and sing in 30 different languages. Their brand is built on the theme, “Discover Beauty in Everyone”, and everywhere they go, they share this vision of a modern and diverse Ireland.
“Through our musical and social activities we support integration and break down racism and prejudice, providing a safe, creative space to "discover beauty in everyone.”
Although Discovery has had a lot of success in the music world, their brand image was falling short of that same success. The lack of consistency and engaging brand identity was bleeding into the choir’s market share with wedding and private event bookings steadily dropping.
Discovery offer a unique value proposition, which wasn’t being clearly communicated to their audience. This resulted in people focusing on the cost of hiring Discovery instead of the value they bring to every event.
Our approach was to improve and evolve the new identity instead of changing it completely. Working with the old logo, we took the key elements that made it unique: (i) Geometric Shape, (ii) Community reference in the jigsaw puzzle and (iii) Music note reference of the glyph.
After we had settled on the mark. We began to explore Discovery's communication system. It was evident that there were challenges and a lack of consistency. We took direction from our data research and focused the identity system on what Discovery is all about, "Humanity".
Discovery's communications system was disconnected and inconsistent.
During the discovery stage of the process, we wanted to answer the question: "What does it mean to both be part of and experience Discovery?" Digging deep into data we unearthed the value that Discovery was bringing to people every day. Together with Nessa from Discovery, we mapped out all the social signals, interviews and spoke to the core team to find the true essence of Discovery. We also examined their brand channels performance and conducted a competitive analysis.
The result was a wealth of insights and data that we used to drive Discovery’s refreshed brand identity.
Because Discovery offers such diversity, we wanted to take caution in how we approached the visual system. Our design approach was built on the modernist movement and in particular, "Geometric Abstraction".
The vibrancy of color and simplicity of the palette speaks to the joy that Discovery brings and the childlike purity of how they willingly accept people from diverse backgrounds.
John has entirely transformed our branding, choosing a color palette, font and design elements with real consideration for the meaning and message of the choir. He has a deep understanding and appreciation of what Discovery is trying to achieve. Never before have I been brought to tears by someone describing their design decisions, which John did using a very comprehensive video presentation! The choir was consulted all through the process, and concerns about departing too far from our previous color scheme or clashing with our uniforms were addressed sensitively and with reassuring expertise. The bold new colors and shapes instantly communicate the vibrant movement and unadulterated diversity of the choir. We are looking forward to using the stunning custom made poster templates which will save us hours of effort in advertising our concerts!
Nessa, Discovery Gospel Choir
