SEI - Pip Creative

BUILDING THE STORY

PROPERTY

BRAND MODELLING • LOGO & VISUAL IDENTITY • WEBSITE DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT • DIGITAL DESIGN • PRINT COLLATERAL

SEI, formerly South Eastern Interiors, is an interior fit-out company working with commercial spaces and developing them for brands entering the market.

From hospitality and leisure to retail, they bring environments to life, working with the likes of PureSeoul, Alta, Maya and Bompard. After a period of exponential growth, SEI were ready for a brand that matched their ambition. The challenge was no longer in proving the business. It was in repositioning it to lead.

THE CHALLENGE

SEI had been growing fast, and its brand had started to fall behind the business it represented. To compete for larger opportunities and more ambitious projects, they needed to reposition themselves in the market and stand apart from the field. Their ambition was clear. To become the go-to company for commercial fit-out across London and the South East, and to disrupt a sector that had long looked the same.

That meant a brand bold enough to carry that ambition, and a partner who could build it with them.

THE APPROACH

When we first met the SEI team it was clear that their passion is to bring the ideas and ambitions of brands to life through the spaces they create. We do the same through brand and creative. Two businesses, the same instinct, different disciplines.

We began with an education session, helping the team understand what undertaking a rebrand would genuinely entail, before moving into scoping. From there, we ran a full brand workshop, drawing out the team’s thinking through a series of questions and a brand character exercise. This gave us everything we needed to develop the strategy and build the brand model, including their proposition.

THE IDEAS

Delivered over four months, from workshop to identity rollout, the work moved through strategy, identity, digital and collateral, each stage building on the last.

At the heart of it sat the proposition. SEI are in the business of bringing brands to life, so we landed on “Building your story.” It became the thread running through everything, driving the creative brief, setting the tone and messaging, and shaping an internal charter for the team to sign up to and build a community around at work.

THE WORK

The visual identity grew from that same idea. We explored concepts around boldness through colour and the process of fit out itself, but the direction that captured the proposition best took the symbolism of a story constructing over time. Letters become words, words become sentences, sentences become paragraphs, paragraphs become chapters, and chapters accumulate into a complete story. We brought in a simple, bold typeface, and the logo incorporates a parallel line and full stop, representing SEI as the beginning of a story, with the brand, the collaboration and the partners filling the space.

We then developed a new website and digital presence, taking inspiration from leading architectural and design sites and building it with exploration in mind. We wanted users to move through the site the way a reader flows through a book, cementing the positioning in real-world application and showcasing SEI’s work in an elevated, slick way. Alongside this, we produced a full suite of collateral, including business stationery, onsite hoarding and materials, portfolio books, vehicle livery and signage, each piece meticulously designed to tie back to the overarching idea.

This project is a clear example of what a rebrand can do when strategy and creative move as one. SEI had the reputation and the work. Our job was to give them a brand that matched it, and a position in the market that set them apart.

The result is a refreshed, bold and elevated identity, a new position within the industry, and a digital presence that highlights their work and operations in a way that finally does them justice. The relationship continues too. We are now retained by SEI to complete their asset suite and support them with ongoing creative development month to month, with campaigns in the pipeline to promote the unique ways of working with SEI.

We are proud of what we have built together and excited for the next chapter.

“Going into a rebrand, we honestly didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t something we’d done before, and Pip guided us through the whole process with a clarity that immediately put us at ease. We placed complete trust in them to translate the direction of our business into something real, and they delivered a strong, bold and disruptive identity that brings ‘Building your story’ to life in a way we couldn’t have imagined ourselves. Pip aren’t an agency we work with. They’re a valued and trusted extension of our team, and we’re excited to keep building with them.”