Hawkins\Brown
IN A NUTSHELL
Hawkins\Brown is one of the UK’s most celebrated architectural practices, but they found it hard to explain what they stand for. Who would have guessed that an inflatable flamingo held the answer.
FULLER STORY
The diversity of H\B’s projects is a testament to their adaptability. They work across seven sectors and don’t have a house style, making it tricky to summarise their identity and approach.
I helped them establish brand clarity in a way that’s true to their culture and touches everything they do. They got a brand book, pithy slogan, copy guidelines and even a top secret phrase.
Before I jump in, I should say that my client has asked that I don’t show too many of the final deliverables here. But what remains is still a useful lesson in finding a simple idea when nothing seems simple.
CLIENT INTERVIEWS
Hawkins\Brown attracts ambitious clients with especially complex challenges. Speaking to them, it hit me that their requirements often appeared paradoxical, riddled with contradictions and tensions.
The paradoxical needs of H\B’s clients
Hawkins\Brown are seen as one of only a few practices capable of navigating these extremes. In contrast, clients regard most architects as specialists — either wild visionaries or safe delivery partners.
This felt important. But it sounded an alarm when clients described H\B as “sitting in the middle” or “able to do it all”. The last thing they wanted to be known for was being a generalist.
FINDING OUR MOJO
Turning my attention back inside the business, I looked for signs and patterns that spoke to this ability to resolve conflicting extremes; something that would turn this into a distinctive strength for Hawkins\Brown.
That’s when I locked eyes with the flamingo.
Above is the Freemen’s School swimming pool - a stunning, clever building. And drifting across the water is, as you can well see, an inflatable flamingo. In another photograph there was an ice cream van…
Photography might seem peripheral here, but these examples proved to be symbolic of a persistent H\B design ethos: mixing complex, societal problem-solving with disarmingly relatable human moments.
Across all their flagship projects, you see this same wonderful contrast. A profound aptitude for knotty challenges, offset with lighthearted and joyful touches. This duality is very much their ‘thing’.
I made the image below in an attempt to capture this feeling: a delicate tension between the scale of the challenge and a desire to playfully touch people’s lives. It resonated strongly with the partners.
Although I can’t share the subsequent two-word shorthand, this doodle does evoke the same sentiment. And it was the perfect response to that persistent client need for resolving ‘impossible’ extremes.
An evergreen philosophy, true across all projects and sectors, it speaks to H\B’s talent for wrestling with contradictions and coming out smiling. And no competitor was claiming anything similar.
So I turned it into a tagline:
The bus stop outside H\B HQ
Establishing this central Brand Idea made it possible to tell one story, both internally and externally, while continuing to embrace their no-house-style philosophy.
““The positioning work Andy carried out with us influences many decisions across the business. It’s our north star and it works so hard for us! We wouldn’t be in such a great place without it.””
ONGOING PARTNERS
It’s impossible to summarise everything that came next. Over the years I’ve created tone of voice guidelines for H\B, written pitch documents, helped to name new services and even rename a department.
Hawkins\Brown also invited me back a few years later to help further instil the brand thinking into their culture and practices. They understand the value of this work and admirably continue to invest in it.
Final note
My favourite thing about this work is knowing that it helps to shape real-world architectural design decisions. Skylines! As someone whose main outputs are words, this is incredibly rewarding.