BWB launches new brand identity
British Wheelchair Basketball has launched its new brand identity. Its exciting new brand will lay the foundations to underpin significant operational and strategic developments in the sport over the forthcoming months and years.
Together We Are British Wheelchair Basketball will represent British Wheelchair Basketball’s unified identity, highlighting the personality and values of the sport; its supportive nature, passion, ambition, edginess, pride, drive, grit and unity.
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The new brand design is made up of three crucial elements of wheelchair basketball, all of which are circular – the basket, wheel and ball. The logo represents a connected community that works together harmoniously. The connecting blades move towards each other in the same formation as a side profile of a wheelchair basketball player.
Importantly, the brand design retains the strong red and blue colour ways which reflect the Great Britain Union flag. This, coupled with a bold, confident and forward-looking font, creates a powerful brand identity for the sport.
In 2017, British Wheelchair Basketball recognised that the sport was on the precipice of significant positive change. To enable the organisation to dynamically move forward and succeed in a commercial and digital world, it needed to fundamentally review its personality, values and positioning.
The National Governing Body acknowledged that without strong values and a future proof brand, its ability to influence and evolve would be limited.
In March 2018, British Wheelchair Basketball selected brand agency Arch Creative through an open tender process, conscious that it needed to work with experts who could take an unbiased, critical view of the current status of its identity and work openly with the organisation to develop a new brand.
The agency was tasked with creating a brand presence and identity for the NGB which seamlessly brought together the three key areas of the organisation – GB Team and Performance, Competition and Leagues, and Participation – and could be effectively applied across everything from the national team kit and merchandise, through to website and on court branding.
Lisa Pearce, CEO of British Wheelchair Basketball, comments:
“Our sport is incredible – fast and dramatic – and every day we see players competing from elite level internationally to domestically within our national leagues. They are joined by players new to the game, making new friends in our clubs up and down the country.
“We are so proud of our sport, but the old identity for British Wheelchair Basketball no longer worked in today’s world. As a sport we are almost unrecognisable from where we were twenty years ago. We wanted the new brand to fundamentally represent us, unique to British Wheelchair Basketball and our stakeholders.”
The new brand identity is brave and will undoubtedly challenge current perceptions of the sport. Every facet of the brand’s delivery now lives and breathes the sports’ dynamic DNA.
Lisa adds: “With our brand partner Arch Creative, we have taken a close look at ourselves and our sport and have created a brand hierarchy and identity which will evolve with us. I am very proud to say that Together We Are British Wheelchair Basketball.”
Joe Nixon, Director of Arch Creative, said:
“Our work with British Wheelchair Basketball has been hugely rewarding. We knew it would be tough to revolutionise the brand of a National Governing Body, but we were up for the challenge. We were clear that we wanted to avoid the stereotypical designs used within the disability sports sector. Instead we focused on the things that empower and reflect the attitudes, dedication and behaviours of players, fans and the wider organisation.
“The new brand communicates a more confident organisation and position. It embodies a fundamental change of tone and posture, one that celebrates British Wheelchair Basketball and the sport, motivating those already playing and those yet to play and watch British Wheelchair Basketball.”
