A picture says a thousand words, right?

And never was that more true than in the world of branding. But what if you don’t have any pictures? Or anything to take a picture of?

Product businesses have it easy! There, I’ve said it. Why? Because product businesses have physical products… which they can photograph, then fill out their website, socials, brochures and other customer touchpoints with gorgeous shots of those products doing wonderful things for people.

But what if you’re a service business? What if you don’t have a lovely product to shoot? What visual assets do you have to build your brand messages around? A bunch of mismatched and clichéd stock images? Zzzz. Some abstract shapes that are tenuously meant to represent the business in some way or other? Zzzz. Or some cutesy off-brand illustrations that use up the entire marketing budget? £££. And how do any of these engage and inform your customers of the benefits of working with you? How are they helping say a thousand words?

So here’s a thought. I recently designed an identity and visual system, then rolled that out to web and print for a new, refreshingly different service business called Pelican, who take the rather dull world of business insurance and flip it on its head. They’re a personality-led business who put the customer first. Oh, and they have a good time doing it too.

But the question still beckoned… without any physical products, how could we bring to life what Pelican were all about? How could we show prospects what sets Pelican apart, what makes them tick, and how they could help customers? All without reverting to stock images (Zzzz) or spending a fortune on illustrations?