Arts and Crafts.
Making creativity count.

At Neon, creativity is at the heart of everything we do — and nothing excites us more than helping others celebrate theirs. We partner with artists, makers, and creative organisations to bring their vision to life through thoughtful branding, design, and storytelling that showcase craft beautifully.

Flexible identity system showcasing Argonon's modular logo applications - orangutan eye, part of 'The World Watches' branding by Neon branding agency

Argonon rebrand
The World Watches

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. The Goldsmiths' Company redrawn Coat of Arms, shown using gold foil blocking onto stationery. Highlighting the high quality of detailing applied to each of the elements of the Coat of Arms, all crafted to elegantly interlink with each other – reflecting the new high standard of all Goldsmiths' Company communications outputs, which underpin their new positioning Touchstone. A positioining inspired by the touchstone (an essential tool of the trade for testing alloys) held by the demi-maiden in the Coat of Arms. Part of the new brand identity for The Goldsmiths' Company. The Goldsmiths' Company a Touchstone for the industry. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Goldsmiths' Company
Brand positioning & identity

Company Assay Office adverts by Neon feature image hallmarks

The Goldsmiths' Company Assay Office
Advertising with more punch...

Branding and website design by Neon - designed by Dana Robertson - Silver Speaks exhibition logo

'Silver Speaks'
Exhibition & event branding

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. The Bench café brand identity, signage. As part of Neon's wider involvement in this ground-breaking development, we were asked to name and create the brand identity for The Goldsmiths’ Centre’s new café. The aim was to provide a friendly and inspiring environment in which members of the silversmithing trade, patrons, partners and the visiting public could relax and rub shoulders, helping to forge a flourishing creative community. The name we came up with — The Bench — was a reference to both heritage (the silversmith’s classic workbench) and the informal ambience of the café itself. The Bench café brand identity also celebrated silversmithing heritage, replacing cutlery with classic silversmithing tools – selected from world renowned silversmith Grant MacDonald’s studio. The Bench café brand identity was rolled out on signage, uniforms, crockery, literature, and environmental graphics. – Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Bench café
Naming & identity

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. Natalia Schroder is an up and coming jewellery designer, whose work has appeared in Vogue and other heavyweight fashion publications. Natalia approached Neon on recommendation to create her new brand identity that would make a elegant impact in the luxury goods market. We elegantly combined Natalia’s initials into a unique monogram, designed to work at a very small sizes, so that it could be used as her ‘maker’s mark’ alongside the hallmarks stamped into her jewellery. The detailing from the monogram carried through onto the refined but strong logotype typography. The colour palette, we used a simple yet sophisticated black and white, with a graphic stripe detail, taken from the feel of the monogram, to be used in packaging, ribbons, tissue wraps and end-paper detailing. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

Natalia Schroder
Brand identity

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. The Goldsmiths' Company Gold: Power & Allure posters featuring the three signature graphic photomontages of crowns created by Neon. Neon were commissioned by to create a campaign idea to promote their exhibition Gold: Power & Allure featuring over 400 gold items. After reviewing the 400 objects, Neon celebrated this variety by building three unique and elegant ‘crown’ montages using a variety of different objects from the collection. The ‘crowns’ then become the hero graphic elements on posters, national advertising, literature and web comms. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Goldsmiths' Company
Gold: Power & Allure

Akin feature image naming and branding by Neon

Akin
The meeting of like minds

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. The Goldsmiths' Centre Creativity Craftsmanship Community workshop reportage 'bench from above'. The Goldsmiths' Centre, Creativity, Craftsmanship, Community. Three words encapsulate the values of The Goldsmiths’ Centre. Creativity encompasses Centre’s commitment to encouraging and inspiring creativity in the design and making of beautiful objects. Craftsmanship refers to the Centre’s important role as a repository of knowledge, building on centuries of experience. Community expresses an important aspiration of the Centre; to create a centre of excellence, a hub where like-minded people and businesses come together to share ideas, collaborate and build relationships, and to become a place of inspiration. These values are married with a brand identity which reflects the Centre’s heritage, with the use of a monochromatic coat of arms of The Goldsmiths’ Company. A strong yellow - the common heraldic substitution for gold – helps create a vibrant, contemporary look and feel, positioning the Centre as a new future-facing organisation, distinctly separate from the more traditional Goldsmiths’ Company. The yellow appears as a crafted information plate on all materials – helping to clearly state the purpose of each piece of comms with the main headline elegantly stencilled into the plate. The new identity was rolled out across all manner of media, including literature, signage and website. – Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Goldsmiths' Centre
Brand positioning & identity

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. D&AD Mix Creatively campaign. The D&AD Xchange programme provides a unique opportunity for the heads of the UK’s top creative educational institutions and courses to mix and meet with some of the world’s leading design practitioners — with two days of talks, case study presentations and lively debate, presenting a broad range of respected creative views and opinions. D&AD’s brief? To create a campaign theme and signature graphic to promote the D&AD Xchange programme event — supported by posters, on-line graphics along with promotional literature, event graphics and ticketing. Our solution, the D&AD Mix Creatively campaign, taking the iconic D&AD mark and making it quite literally ooze with creative thinking, bringing to life all that creative talent mixing together with a painterly approach. The D&AD Mix Creatively campaign included promotional literature and posters, invitations and event and presentation animations. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

D&AD
Mix Creatively

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. The Goldsmiths' Company New Designers exhibition stand. Helping young talent get noticed. For up-and-coming jewellers, The Goldsmiths’ Company’s annual New Designers exhibition is a fantastic opportunity to showcase their talents. With a very tight turn-around time, we were asked to create a simple yet elegant “welcome” stand to introduce the new designers, and direct visitors to each individual jeweller’s exhibit. We were rather pleased with the outcome, particularly the dot-screen frames, which looked convincingly three-dimensional, while also giving visual coherence to a disparate collection of supplied images. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Goldsmiths' Company
New Designers exhibition stand

By Dana Robertson Creative Director and Founder of Neon. Adding a bit of sparkle. Like a lot of our projects, this came to us via an existing client relationship - when our old friends at The Goldsmiths' Company recommended Neon to their counterparts at The Gemmological Association of Great Britain (also known as Gem-A). When we met them, Gem-A's communications were short of coherence, and lacked the kind of authoritative feel that would reflect their standing as a trade body with an important industry leadership role to play. We were happy to supply both, across a range of advertising and literature, along with a much needed bit of creative sparkle - demonstrated, for example, by those nice little jeweller's loupes standing in for quotation marks. Idea, art direction and design by Neon Design & Branding Consultancy www.neon-creative.com

The Gemmological Association of Great Britain
Advertising & literature