Brand identity, digital presence and communications system for a global agency working at the intersection of governments, communities and social change.
Breakthrough Media was an agency with a strong track record and an identity that no longer reflected its ambitions. The brief was to lead the transformation into Zinc Network — a new brand built to operate at the highest levels of international communications, with clients including the Home Office, USAID, the World Health Organization and the Department for Education.
The challenge was to create something that could hold authority in the boardrooms of government ministries while still feeling human and purpose-driven on the ground. The brand needed to work across a global team, a politically sensitive client roster, and a mission rooted in people-powered change.
Cutting through the weeds
A previous agency had already attempted the rebrand and stalled, leaving behind a set of abandoned creative routes that pointed in several directions at once. Rather than starting from scratch, I worked directly with the CEO to establish a clear brand philosophy from the existing material — rapidly refining the thinking into a brief that the design team could execute with conviction.
Serious fun
The identity needed to project confidence and authority — this was an agency briefing governments on how to counter disinformation and drive social change. But authority without humanity would have been exactly wrong for a brand built around people. Embossed extra-thick business cards, watermarked stationery and a considered typographic palette gave the collateral a physical weight that matched the organisation’s ambitions.
Shouting quietly
Zinc Network’s work — counter-extremism programmes, media literacy campaigns, behaviour change initiatives — often couldn’t be discussed publicly. The website had to communicate the agency’s credibility and reach without revealing operational detail. The solution was a structure built around thematic summary pages, each collating internal context and external evidence that pointed to the kind of work that made Zinc Network distinctive, without exposing what couldn’t be shared.
A window on the world
The logo’s distinctive angular geometry became a device across the entire identity — a literal window framing the human stories behind the agency’s work. Applied to photography, it connected the brand’s authoritative visual language to the communities it existed to serve, and gave the system a flexibility that worked from business cards to full-bleed editorial imagery.
Lightweight design for heavyweight content
Zinc Network published research and policy reports for audiences across government, civil society and international development. A suite of report templates was designed to be as unobtrusive as possible — the design stepping back to let the arguments breathe, while still carrying the brand’s authority. The principle was simple: lightweight design for heavyweight content.
