[ This work was undertaken whilst I was Lead Designer at Sea. ]
What is Alfi?
Telehealth and telecare services are a rapidly growing segment of the healthcare market. Using smart technology, healthcare professionals are able to monitor and support patients remotely. Allowing patients to stay at home for longer not only reduces the cost of care, it also prevents patients health from deteriorating in unfamiliar care settings. BT Cornwall - a joint venture subsidiary company of BT - took over the provision of these services from Cornwall Council and Peninsula Community Health in 2013. Alfi is the new trading name for these services.
The company is currently developing a centre of excellence within Cornwall, which will be their base for provision of both services. As well as developing a completely integrated back office system (the first of it's kind), Alfi are also prototyping some additional services to compliment Alfi Telehealth and Alfi Telecare allowing it to deliver further improvements for patients and further savings for health and care providers.
The project
Starting from nothing the first job was to quickly explore directions we could take with the trading company's new name. A key factor from day one was that the project would not be technology led, it would be people led. People retaining their independence was a recurring theme which ultimately led to the acronym ALFI: Assisted Living for Independence. We decided to present without harsh capitals to make it gentler on the eyes as well as it then presenting as the name 'Alfi', which itself feels friendly and welcoming.
My main role in the early stages of this project was developing the initial briefs that work would be measured against, writing an emotive brand story that would reflect the personality we were aiming to encapsulate and overseeing the creation of a series of creative routes for presentation to a group of stakeholders from across the partnership.
Alfi's Identity
The chosen route was based around the following proposition:
'People and their needs are at the heart of our telehealth and telecare propositions. They will be embraced with a technology led support environment.'
The identity was developed further based on feedback from all stakeholders. We looked at colour contrast, typographic positioning, variations of the logo (type only, without gradients, spot colour), lockups of the logo with the trading name, typeface pairings and photographic style.
The supporting colour palette was developed extensibly with colours being chosen not only for the way they complimented the key blues, but also for the way people would respond to them. The blues were chosen to portray dependability, trust and quality whilst the greens would support with feelings of calm, and balance. The palette had a single yellow added to inject some warmth if ever required and a soft red because the odd warning notice would inevitably be needed in the future. Finally a slightly off white base colour erring towards yellow was chosen to sit comfortably with the entire palette, so that even the simplest applications would be able to carry some warmth instead of feeling clinical in white.
