Our role
Copy writing, content creation, brand identity, design and illustration

The brief
The Institute of Physics briefed us to create 3 pieces of educational literature promoting physics at GCSE, A-level and higher education. They didn’t have any suitable youth branding in place and were looking for a way to tie the literature together as a set while still appealing individually to these demographics.

The process
Our starting point was a naming system that tied the publications together and we arrived at ‘EXP’ – a term commonly used in science and maths to represent ‘exponential’. The publications were named EXPerience, EXPlore and EXPand, and for them we designed a family of flexible mastheads.

To compliment the masthead identities NFG generated a library of bespoke icons. These are versatile in that they unify all three titles through a common visual language, while allowing each to retain its own identity, and were used variously across the publications.

We worked closely with the IOP to create a consistent and appropriate tone of voice, and established a set of rules to accompany it. As well as the written tone there were strong visual rules, for example; no stereotypical ‘science’ stock images; no students studying alone in lab coats. Where possible we would generate illustrated imagery ourselves or photograph natural images on location at universities and schools. All of this helped to shed the unapproachable and cold depiction of science we had encountered through our research into existing materials.

We knew the target audience would be likely to skim over the content, so it was important that copy was direct and to the point, utilising vox pops, pull quotes and visual hooks as a way to entice them. The publications had to impact on and engage the reader very quickly.

The EXP series proved very successful for the IOP, and is currently in its sixth reprint. We have gone on to design a wide variety of other materials for the Institute since.