A Brand for the Business of Ocean Science

The Challenge

Mara Consultants advises on marine science, conservation policy and communications — work judged by research institutions, government bodies and conservation funders, where credibility is earned in peer review rather than in advertising. They came to us with no identity at all: a consultancy doing serious ocean science with nothing to put on a proposal, a congress banner or an exhibition stand. The brand had to read as rigorous to scientists and policymakers without disappearing into the background, and it had to hold up in the one place marine science actually meets its public — the conference floor.

The Approach

We started with a structured brand discovery, running an exploratory questionnaire across Mara’s founding team to settle positioning, audience and tone before any design work began. From that we built the company identity — logo and core visual system — designed to carry across written proposals, policy documents and physical event collateral. The relationship then compounded. Mara returned as conference organiser for the 8th International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC8) in Edinburgh, and we designed the congress logo and banner, benchmarked against previous editions in Cape Town and Kiel. That extended again into exhibition design, with branding for a curved pop-up stand built for the circuit of marine science congresses the team works.

The Results

Mara went from no identity to a system that holds in all three places their work is judged: the written proposal, the policy document and the congress hall. The IMCC8 identity gives the congress a visual presence of its own ahead of Edinburgh, in a series where each edition sets its own look. Three commissions in, what began as a single logo brief has become a standing design partnership.