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Design Bridge and Partners create kintsugi identity for Gen-All
Design Bridge and Partners have created a kintsugi-inspired new look for Gen-All, a charity that promotes intergenerational work and best practice.
Gen-All co-founder Judith Ish-Horowicz has run a nursery within a care home since 2017. She received lottery funding to create a new body bringing together different organisations in the space to share best practice.
“We were aware that there was a lot of intergenerational work going on, but there was no understanding of what was actually impactful,” she explains.
The new Gen-All logo by Design Bridge and Partners
Ish-Horowicz worked with the Beth Johnson Foundation to revive the Centre of Intergenerational Practice and Research and Development. She met Design Bridge and Partners’ Chief Strategy Officer Matt Boffey because his daughter attended her nursery and he offered to work on the project pro bono.
“Everyone recognises that stronger relationships between the generations create some really positive outcomes for society, especially in this moment where we’ve got demographic change and stretched resources,” Boffey says.
“We wanted to create a compelling brand that people could get behind, so it could become a beacon to attract different partners.”
Design Bridge and Partners’ visuals for Gen-All
Boffey and his team felt the name CIRP “took a lot of unpacking” while Ish-Horowicz is more blunt – “It was a terrible name.”
They hit on Gen-All as a simple and immediate way of capturing what the organisation stands for. “Intergenerational work is about all the generations rather than just the extremes of the very young and the very old,” Boffey says,
“So we wanted something that could represent that broader sense of inclusivity, and something that wasn’t too abstract.”
He says this immediacy was particularly important for a small organisation with limited budgets.
They created a simple wordmark using the new name in Hepta Slab, with the hyphen also acting as a visual metaphor bridging the generations, and the various organisations Gen-All wants to unite.
Senior designer Leanne Kitchen explains that the logo was kept deliberately neutral because of the very busy and colourful assets that were developed for the broader identity.
This was built on the idea of fragmentation, which applied across generations as well as among the intergenerational practice community itself.
“We wanted to translate that into a very clear message and we liked the idea of filling the gap, to bring the generations back together,” Kitchen explains. This led them to kintsugi, or golden joinery, which is the Japanese act of repairing broken objects with a lacquer that reconnects the pieces, but doesn’t hide the fact it has once been broken.
“We liked the idea that it creates something new, but embraces the past and its previous fragmentation,” Kitchen explains. “We’re not shying away from where we’ve been, and just trying to glue it back together. Using kintsugi creates a more meaningful whole.”
Design Bridge and Partners’ visuals for Gen-All
And so the visuals are created from repaired ceramic pieces that represent different generations, with contrasting imagery attached together. There was also a neat historic link to the Beth Johnson foundation, which is based in Stoke, the heart of the Potteries.
They held workshops at Ish-Horowicz’ London nursery to create the first pieces, where they also collected stories from participants about how bringing together young and old had benefitted their lives.
The team later used AI image generation tools to expand the visual assets and create a broad suite of imagery for Gen-All’s digital channels. And the pottery theme extends into lots of nice touches, such as using stacked plates to create a chart to share key stats in the Gen-All newsletter.
Boffey says it’s important for Design Bridge and Partners to take on projects like this alongside its big-name client work.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to take the talent we have and create a different type of impact with a different type of partner, which is no less important than furthering the ends of our commercial clients,” he explains.
“It’s very motivating to our people, and it gives them an opportunity to stretch themselves in new directions. We get lots of people wanting to be involved and we don’t ever treat these projects as a hobby or a side project.”
For Ish-Horowicz, the impact of the rebrand is already being felt, with renewed interest and engagement across the UK, as well as new connections around the world, from the US and Sweden to Israel, India and Turkey.
And she is excited for how the new brand will help further this work, which she has committed so much of her life to.
“For the first time we are connecting people together, so professionals in this space can support each other and bring the level of impact up,” she says. “It’s no longer coming into care homes and singing at somebody at Christmas. Now we are all singing together, and singing from the same song sheet.”
#design #bridge #partners #create #kintsugi
Design Bridge and Partners create kintsugi identity for Gen-All
Design Bridge and Partners have created a kintsugi-inspired new look for Gen-All, a charity that promotes intergenerational work and best practice.
Gen-All co-founder Judith Ish-Horowicz has run a nursery within a care home since 2017. She received lottery funding to create a new body bringing together different organisations in the space to share best practice.
“We were aware that there was a lot of intergenerational work going on, but there was no understanding of what was actually impactful,” she explains.
The new Gen-All logo by Design Bridge and Partners
Ish-Horowicz worked with the Beth Johnson Foundation to revive the Centre of Intergenerational Practice and Research and Development. She met Design Bridge and Partners’ Chief Strategy Officer Matt Boffey because his daughter attended her nursery and he offered to work on the project pro bono.
“Everyone recognises that stronger relationships between the generations create some really positive outcomes for society, especially in this moment where we’ve got demographic change and stretched resources,” Boffey says.
“We wanted to create a compelling brand that people could get behind, so it could become a beacon to attract different partners.”
Design Bridge and Partners’ visuals for Gen-All
Boffey and his team felt the name CIRP “took a lot of unpacking” while Ish-Horowicz is more blunt – “It was a terrible name.”
They hit on Gen-All as a simple and immediate way of capturing what the organisation stands for. “Intergenerational work is about all the generations rather than just the extremes of the very young and the very old,” Boffey says,
“So we wanted something that could represent that broader sense of inclusivity, and something that wasn’t too abstract.”
He says this immediacy was particularly important for a small organisation with limited budgets.
They created a simple wordmark using the new name in Hepta Slab, with the hyphen also acting as a visual metaphor bridging the generations, and the various organisations Gen-All wants to unite.
Senior designer Leanne Kitchen explains that the logo was kept deliberately neutral because of the very busy and colourful assets that were developed for the broader identity.
This was built on the idea of fragmentation, which applied across generations as well as among the intergenerational practice community itself.
“We wanted to translate that into a very clear message and we liked the idea of filling the gap, to bring the generations back together,” Kitchen explains. This led them to kintsugi, or golden joinery, which is the Japanese act of repairing broken objects with a lacquer that reconnects the pieces, but doesn’t hide the fact it has once been broken.
“We liked the idea that it creates something new, but embraces the past and its previous fragmentation,” Kitchen explains. “We’re not shying away from where we’ve been, and just trying to glue it back together. Using kintsugi creates a more meaningful whole.”
Design Bridge and Partners’ visuals for Gen-All
And so the visuals are created from repaired ceramic pieces that represent different generations, with contrasting imagery attached together. There was also a neat historic link to the Beth Johnson foundation, which is based in Stoke, the heart of the Potteries.
They held workshops at Ish-Horowicz’ London nursery to create the first pieces, where they also collected stories from participants about how bringing together young and old had benefitted their lives.
The team later used AI image generation tools to expand the visual assets and create a broad suite of imagery for Gen-All’s digital channels. And the pottery theme extends into lots of nice touches, such as using stacked plates to create a chart to share key stats in the Gen-All newsletter.
Boffey says it’s important for Design Bridge and Partners to take on projects like this alongside its big-name client work.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to take the talent we have and create a different type of impact with a different type of partner, which is no less important than furthering the ends of our commercial clients,” he explains.
“It’s very motivating to our people, and it gives them an opportunity to stretch themselves in new directions. We get lots of people wanting to be involved and we don’t ever treat these projects as a hobby or a side project.”
For Ish-Horowicz, the impact of the rebrand is already being felt, with renewed interest and engagement across the UK, as well as new connections around the world, from the US and Sweden to Israel, India and Turkey.
And she is excited for how the new brand will help further this work, which she has committed so much of her life to.
“For the first time we are connecting people together, so professionals in this space can support each other and bring the level of impact up,” she says. “It’s no longer coming into care homes and singing at somebody at Christmas. Now we are all singing together, and singing from the same song sheet.”
#design #bridge #partners #create #kintsugi
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