Hasta La Ideas

ASHA has created a brand positioning, mark and identity for Lark, a 60 year-old insurance company, that focuses on the company’s heritage and its tailor-made products

Lark was founded in 1948 as a family business and has offices in London and the south-east. According to ASHA, it wanted to highlight its heritage and also the fact that it specialises in providing bespoke insurance products, in contrast to the services offered by bigger players. The design consultancy decided that the latter was what made Lark stand apart and so chose to concentrate the new identity and positioning around that.

A new mark uses a bespoke typeface and incorporates the outline of the eponymous bird into the R of the company name (shown top).

Lark apparently offers insurance cover for specialist items such as musical instruments as well as for cars and travel. ASHA created a series of stamps for each of these areas which also incorporate the year the busines was founded and the words ‘made to measure’. The crests are used on literature and on the website.

A new colour scheme is derived form the colours of the lark itself.

Note the lark-shaped paper clip too.

Instead of stock photography, ASHA created a set of drawings based on tailor’s patterns for use in literature.

It’s evident that a great deal of care has been taken over every aspect of this project. The result is a beautifully crafted job for what, on the face of it, could be a fairly unappetising client and a brand that stands out markedly against its competitors.

CR in Print

Thanks for visiting the CR website, but if you are not also reading CR in print you’re missing out. Our March issue is an illustration special with features on Clifford Richards, Pick Me Up, the relationship between illustrators and writers, the making of the cover of the New York Times Magazine and a powerful essay by Lawrence Zeegen calling on illustrators to become more engaged with the wider world and accusing the profession of withdrawing “from the big debates of our society to focus on the chit-chat and tittle-tattle of inner-sanctum nothingness”.

The best way to make sure you receive CR in print every month is to subscribe – you will also save money and receive our award-winning Monograph booklet every month. You can do so here.