We have begun a piece of work to strengthen Imperial’s brand.

Imperial is a fantastic institution, delivering world-changing impact. This is about telling our story with even greater clarity, confidence and impact.

Building our brand will help us compete on a sustainable basis in the very top tier internationally. It’s at the heart of the ambition and vision we are setting through our new institutional strategy and our own community, through the recent strategy consultation, signalled a clear desire to bolster our reputation and get Imperial the recognition it deserves.

The goal is a brand identity that better reflects Imperial’s ambition and vision, helps us communicate more effectively with all our audiences, and differentiates us more clearly from others.

The project is supported by a Project Board, a Working Group, and a Critical Friends Group. We are working with the design studio Pentagram and with Open Inclusion, an inclusive research agency, to ensure the inclusivity and accessibility of our new brand.

Project timeline

Between now and December, the Imperial Brand Project will cover:

• Research and discovery (interviews, survey, and focus group sessions to understand our challenges and opportunities)
• Developing a brand proposition (something that captures and articulate Imperial’s purpose, vision and differentiators)
• A review of our brand identity system (including logo, typeface and colour palette)
• The development of a brand toolkit (the guidelines and assets needed for long-term delivery and management of the brand)

We have now completed the research and discovery phase and moved into creative work on the verbal and visual identity. The discovery phase used a survey, interviews, focus group sessions, and desk-based research to understand our challenges and opportunities. A summary of their findings can be read in this report (pdf). Many thanks to everyone who participated in the discovery phase.

Our goal is an attractive, adaptable and flexible brand system that works for the whole Imperial community. We want all parts of our community to help shape this work. The final brand guidelines will be shared in early 2024.

Work on the Brand Project is closely aligned with the website redesign project.

How to get involved

The success of this project will depend on the involvement of our whole community. We will engage with staff, students, alumni, and other key stakeholders throughout and share information about the project on this webpage. 

We are now in a period of focused community engagement on initial work on the brand identity.

A video presentation and feedback form for staff, students and alumni is available online until Friday 13 October – please share your views. Staff and students can access the video and form on this webpage. Alumni have been contacted directly.

Imperial staff, students and alumni can also register their interest to attend a feedback session hosted by Pentagram.

• Wednesday 27 September, 10.00–11.00, South Kensington Campus
• Tuesday 3 October, 10.00–11.00, online
• Wednesday 4 October, 10.00–11.00, online
• Wednesday 11 October, 10.00–11.00, online

Alumni can register their interest in joining one of these sessions by emailing Tabitha Pearson-Moore (t.pearson-moore@imperial.ac.uk). 

Using our existing brand? We need your help!

We’re asking our staff to please share information on how you use the current brand (for example: flyers, posters, slides, social media graphics, banners for events, departmental brochures, merchandise) – or would like to use it in the future –  through this short form. This will help us plan and prepare tools for the implementation of the brand from early 2024.

Ultimately, we want to provide tools and resources that will be most useful to you in your area of work, whether that’s a platform to design and produce high quality materials for print and digital use (similar to Canva), Microsoft Office templates, or access to a range of files and resources. We’ll be exploring possibilities and will report back to the community in the coming months.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about the project, please submit them via our contact form.