Farewill
IN A NUTSHELL
Farewill’s mission is to change the way the world deals with death. But they weren’t quite sure what they stood for or how it related to all their services. After several weeks, we arrived at these two words:
FULLER STORY
Farewill launched in 2015 as an online will writing service. They thought that making will writing simpler and more accessible would stop people from putting it off. They were right, but copycats quickly appeared…
Early online competitors
Now in a saturated market, and having added funeral and probate services, the team felt they were losing touch with what made their brand special. They were in danger of blending in with the others.
Founder, Dan Garrett, wanted to capture the emotion in Farewill’s approach. To tap into a deeper human truth that other companies couldn’t claim because they didn’t have the service to back it up.
KEY FINDINGS
I learned that the starkly named ‘death category’ has barely changed in over a hundred years. It’s still defined by archaic traditions, sombre attire and intimidating legal docs. You know, this sort of thing…
But fresh research by Jennifer Winfield revealed that long-standing taboos around death were finally breaking down. People were questioning traditions and making more personal, meaningful choices.
Most companies don’t encourage or facilitate this. They’re set up to continue doing things how they’ve always been done - and as efficiently as possible. Sticking to tradition is safe and suits them just fine.
In contrast, Farewill is countering the heaviness and complexity of the category. Their customers rave about the support and inspiration they’re given to deal with death more personally and positively.
This all made perfect sense when I learned that Farewill began as a passion project at the Royal College of Arts. It was a company born not in a solicitor’s office but in a culture of empathy and design thinking.
Below is a photo of Dan and his co-founder, Tom, in their RCA days. Sadly, Dan doesn’t wear this hat any more.
Farewill’s RCA origins are significant. Because while other companies in the category tend to be tradition-centric, process-centric, law-centric or price-centric, Farewill is inherently and authentically human-centric.
THE BRAND IDEA
Brighter Goodbyes was one of those obvious-in-hindsight sort of ideas. It took a while to get there, but here’s a Venn diagram to make it look easy:
‘Brighter’ is the perfect antidote to the category’s default gloominess, and was already evident in Farewill’s warm yellow signature colour. But the word ‘Goodbyes’ was what you might call the unlock.
This word reframes every one of Farewill’s services through a deeply human lens. Because all death-related services are about people parting ways. Or, as the company name alludes to, farewells.
This language solved a real conundrum for the business: How to settle on a single organising idea that speaks to multiple services spanning a spectrum of diverse situations, emotions and timelines.
STORYTELLING
Even a strong two-word phrase needs expanding, to help people understand and feel what it means. I wrote a short brand manifesto to do just that:
MAKING IT USABLE
Perhaps my favourite part of this project was translating Brighter Goodbyes into actionable brand attributes collaboratively. Not me in a silo, but in group workshops involving loads of Farewill team members.
I ran seven workshops with teams across the business to collectively stress-test the language in the brand attributes. We even got the legal team involved.
At the end of the process, a huge portion of the company had had their fingerprints on the words and felt clear and confident about how to apply them.
LANGUAGE & TONE
No death is a happy occasion, so the Brightness concept needed handling sensitively. Blind positivity at the wrong moment could seriously misfire. So I ran a writing workshop with Farewill’s copywriting team.
My parting advice was that the tone of voice should feel like a warm light in the darkness. Reassuring, compassionate and, where appropriate, gently uplifting. Helping people find their way in difficult or uncertain times.
As well as running these workshops, I wrote a fair bit of copy for Farewill to show this voice in context:
FINAL THOUGHT
I sometimes compress timelines to suit budgets, but true to their own philosophy, the Farewill team wanted to give the necessary time and space to get the best result. It really showed in the final work.
This was a seven-week project, allowing time for deep category immersion, thorough company and customer research, and proper collaboration. I was thrilled with the result and this testimonial:
“Andy is a wonderful, inspiring, uniquely talented person to work with. I loved every minute of it.
He helped us to succinctly unify our company strategy and the essence of our brand into something minimal, perfect, inspiring and loved by all. I would work with him a thousand times over. Pure joy. Thank you!”
- Dan Garrett, Founder and CEO
In case you’re wondering, Farewill’s wonderful visual brand was created by Koto. Illustrations by Anna Charity. I had nothing to do with either of those things, but I love how it all comes together.