The HSBC brand had become increasingly disjointed. Multiple sub brands that had no real connection to the Masterbrand meant it was proving difficult for customers to navigate, lowering the opportunity for cross sell. Love for the visual toolkit had also waned – complex tools that required time and money to get to market.

We were tasked to:

Build more visual consistency and cohesion to the HSBC identity, making it easier for customers to navigate and discover new products & services (from retail to private banking & asset management).

Give internal employees a simpler visual toolkit that’s more cost effective and quicker to get communications to market.

Put accessibility at the heart of the design system, ensuring it was inclusive for all.

And make sure the system worked both globally and locally; building consistency across different markets.

We began by streamlining the architecture and giving the brand one voice – HSBC. No more needless subbrand logo lock ups, just a simple signposting mechanism that would guide customers through different products within the bank.

The visual identity used the new brand promise ‘Opening up a world of opportunity’ as the starting point - HSBC is quite literally opening up – to new ideas, perspectives and people. And opening up opportunities that can connect people across borders, continents and beyond.

By creating a simple expression of the hexagon logo, we created new design tools that could ‘open’ up in different ways – a window onto opportunity, both statically and through motion.

The design was flexed for different products: Retail became simple and iconic & Premier adopted a more sophisticated deeper red. Private Banking has a cinematic view of the world while Asset Management connects the natural world with data

We leveraged the most recognisable parts – the iconic hexagon and the bold red with a simple framework that could be flexed for different products and audiences.

The red hexagon became the hero and its angles play a bigger role throughout, becoming a canvas for content and a simple way to own photography, all designed to drive stronger recall and emotional bond with customers.

We celebrate red, expanding the palette to help create nuance across products and services. And a new motion design system that uses the hexagon to open up from the smallest screen to the largest.

This was all underpinned with an approach that created a more accessible framework for the bank – simpler graphics, more legibility in typography and tools that translate to small screen to give mobile experiences more dynamism.

HSBC now has a more confident, simple and iconic brand identity. No more disjointed visual properties that confuse customer journeys. Now it’s one bank and one voice, but with enough flexibility to allow teams to be expressive.

It has also been optimised for digital spaces – more motion and colour to bring it to life in mobile.

And putting customers first when it comes to accessibility – simpler, clearer and more legible.

The identity launched internally in November 2021 and is now being implemented by internal teams and agencies across the globe.