Laura Clink designs a flexible identity for family-run print shop Phillips Print

Phillips Print is a third-generation, family-run printer based just outside of London. It’s a company with a staunch ethos “built on handshakes, repeat business and knowing their customers by name”, says designer Laura Clink. When she was approached by Liam Phillips – the current director – to give the business a fresh identity, it was clear that their humble approach should be reflected in every touchpoint.

“The strength of Phillips Print is in being the opposite of a big corporate brand,” says Laura. “It’s personal, local and built around relationships, so the identity needed to capture that rather than feel overly polished.” The designer had come across Liam Phillips in the design world, so she already knew the director well. “That made the design process really collaborative, fun and playful, which I think comes across in the identity.”

Warm and tactile, the resulting identity is made up of a flexible system with lots of different expressions. A bold but approachable custom-drawn wordmark is accompanied by nine different logos. “That flexibility really speaks to the idea of community – literally a community of logos – and brings a level of play into the identity,” says Laura. It also gives the client freedom to experiment with the identity themselves, whether it’s for company merch, or printed on football kits for their local football team – the Letchworth Garden City Eagles – which Liam played for as a kid. This versatility is completely in line with the company’s spirit of being hands-on in every project and personalised to each client’s needs.

The core deliverable was a new website, so it was important for the branding to translate easily into the digital space while holding onto its essence as a print-based company. “The benefit of having a printer as a client, though, was that Liam was super hands-on,” says Clink. “He was constantly printing flyers, stickers, merch and vinyls and sending me things as he tested them. It meant we could see how the identity behaved in the real world as we developed it, so the process became really collaborative.”