Reframing a legacy brand

Despite Plancorp’s strong heritage and client-centric approach, its outward-facing brand and website were beginning to feel conservative and rooted in legacy. The challenge lay in bringing the brand forward while preserving its credibility in a highly regulated, trust-based category.

During my involvement, while at Platinum Seed, the task was two-fold: first to refresh the brand identity to feel more modern and dynamic—without eroding the firm’s gravitas—and second to translate that identity into a redesign of the marketing website, improving the architecture, journey, clarity of service lines, and overall user experience.

One of the first decisions I made was to lean into an existing brand asset the “wedge.” It was already part of Plancorp’s visual vocabulary, but hard-edged, rigid and a little cold. I softened its point, rounded it subtly, and explored how it could breathe. Depending on how we used it, the wedge became filled or hollow — a shape that could carry weight when needed, disappear when not, signal direction, hold images or frame content. That malleability allowed it to become the backbone of the reimagined identity, a subtle but powerful visual touchpoint.

Although the broader project ultimately did not progress to its full rollout stage, the work laid important groundwork in terms of mindset shift, design direction and organisational readiness for digital-first brand evolution.