SHHHH rebrands to Compendia

In March 2021 after much deliberation founder Sam Harrons made the bold and exciting decision to rebrand SHHHH. Read on for a sneak peek and to discover more about the rebrand…?

SHHHH started in 2008 as a tag for Sam’s street art using his initials SH with the message of: ‘SHHHH keep it a secret’. It soon grew into an artist collective that provided a platform to support emerging talent in Norfolk.?

In 2012 Nick and Robin of Dogfish and Sevenwolves came on board as business partners. Together they grew the brand into a household name, producing thousands of sustainably made, best-selling t-shirts, tote bags and local city guides.?

As the products and services evolved, Sam felt it was time to, “create a new brand that would pair better with our refined purpose, messaging, ethos and mission as I had outgrown the SHHHH brand that I created in my teens.”

Following an amicable parting with Nick and Robin in 2020, and with plans to scale outwards, the aim was to reposition the business to a wider customer profile.

“I wanted to create a new brand that sets the stage for doing better in the world, with more collaboration and collective, community action. We are still staying true to our street culture roots, just growing up.”

As SHHHH has always been a tricky word for people to say, locate in search engines or spell correctly, Sam needed a brand name that was future-proof and one that could house his wider vision. Looking at the core offering – the much-loved travel guide – Sam explored the words ‘guide’ and ‘directory’, which led to:?

compendium noun, plural compendia: a collection of concise but detailed information about a particular subject, especially in a book or other publication.?

Sam soft launched the brand name Compendia as an ethical brand directory around Christmas 2020 and sat with it for a few months.

From SHHHH to Compendia

In spring 2021, Ark Design was tasked with creating the new visual identity for Compendia, which included the redesign of the city guide and the wider brand identity to be used across a variety of print and digital applications.?

“The main aim of the rebrand was to create an identity to allow for connections with new audiences and to unlock the potential of expanding to other cities and regions, both in the UK and across the globe,” says Myles Hunt, Senior Designer at Ark Design.

The strategy of ‘global communities’ led to the idea of the ‘Co’ becoming the key identifier of Compendia – either as a standalone mark or used as the prefix to words such as Community, Collective and Collaborate. This made it easy to communicate the brand values in a flexible and identifiable way across all communications, in a globally understood language.

“The brand is brought to life through powerful community-led messaging, paired with playful typography, iconography and a flexible colour palette. Each city brings its own unique sense of place and we felt it important to allow for an identity which can be moulded into different forms to reflect this,” concludes Myles. ?

Here’s a sneak peek of the brand identity, let us know what you think!