“The most gorgeous thing about Write Club is how, without fail, it ends up being a space for intimate sharing and open-hearted feedback. It’s one of the most rewarding and life-affirming projects I’ve been a part of . Every session we begin by opening the space and setting a prompt or restraint for the writers to respond to, and then we start writing – together but separately – for an hour. After some food and wine, plus a talk from an invited guest, we edit and share our words. I love to write in company and I’m more productive under pressure, so Write Club has often been the birthplace of short texts that go on to be really important for my work.”
––Susanna Davies-Crook, Co–founder, Write Club
Any brand identity design begins with a research phase where we immerse ourselves in the world of the business/brand. It allows us to understand the theme of the thing we are designing around.
For Write Club, we were tasked to create a brand identity and social media style guide for this project. We knew it would be essential to do first-hand research by going along to a few sessions before making a start. Even though we were looking forward to connecting with others and developing our skills, we felt concerned about what it would be like to share our work with others. Writing can feel daunting (including this write-up!); however, thanks to the nurturing community––and probably also the free wine––these worries quickly dissolved as soon as we settled in. Write Club is a space full of collaboration, insight, expression, and laughter. It's impossible to feel awkward in the environment that they create. After attending, we explored a naive visual language style and non-confrontational vernacular handwriting in our first designs to reflect this feeling of experimentation and play present in Write Club's sessions.
As participants, Write Club left us feeling a sense of solid community that inspires confidence, encourages new ways of thinking, and demystifies many of the writing process or journey cliches.
On the left are some moodboards explored which looked at the overall brand direction.
When Susanna Davies-Crook and Matt Maude started running Write Club at Soho Works at the beginning of 2022 they wanted to create a space that felt accessible, open and achievable for anyone attending, every time they came. Over the last two years, Write Club has become one of the most popular events at Soho Works:
“We have been lucky enough to have Susanna and Matt host Write Club here at Soho Works for the past two years. The events they host here are truly beautiful - they’ve created an authentic community where participants collaborate and communicate with one another all the time - something that is priceless to me as Head of Digital Membership at Soho House. In addition to membership retention, we’ve recorded the following data from the Write Club partnership:
- Oscar, Bafta, Emmy, Golden Globe and Olivier award winning guest speakers invited every month
- Over 250+ Soho members attending Write Club events over the last 24 months
- Participants retaining Soho membership in order to attend Write Club
- Monthly event sells out within 24 hours
- Write Club event capacity increased in 2023 as a result of popularity throughout 2022”
–– Emma Clarke, Head of Digital Membership at Soho House
Susanna and Matt liked the options, however, emphasised a clean and minimal look and feel would be the best route to work with moving forward––to be coupled with member spotlights, etc. Above are some of the typefaces explored based on the initial moodboards, before we considered something that looked more clean and contemporary, which you can see on the right →
Every session we run is always a mixture of first timers attending, alongside other participants who have been coming to Write Club for years. In everything we do we try to create a safe space that caters to both of these energies. To welcome those that might be understandably nervous about joining a new group - whilst also creating a familiar space that people feel at home coming back to. Although we’re a Club, it’s one made up of individuals who each are made up of a multitude of identities, histories, hopes and fears. And we’re here to create a safe space for all of them. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience when you hear someone’s words for the first time. Especially when this person may never have shared their work publicly before. It’s all about inspiring confidence. Belonging. To create an energy that always says “You’ve Got This - We’re Here to Hear You”
––Matt Maude, Co–founder, Write Club
As Write Club develops into publishing and spotlights on individual members of the collective, bespoke handwriting fonts as well as scans of participants' texts could be overlaid onto Write Club’s photos, and the brand identity we developed. In doing so, the individual’s texts - the words themselves - would stand out. The re–introduction of handwriting works only as there’s a clear, minimalistic aesthetic to work with:
To ensure the visual language spoke directly to the writers, readers, actors, screenwriters, and other creatives who go along to Write Club, Matt's imagery and videography both communicate the vibe of Write Club and how the Club is all about its members and the friends they bring.
By aligning brand elements and leveraging photography as a storytelling tool, we've created a visual identity that communicates Write Club's core values of collaboration, exploration and empowerment.
Ultimately we decided a clean bold typeface supported by eye-catching brand colours should form the background of the website, social media content and merchandise. We went though a similar process with colour, as we did with typography. The final choice for their colour palette can be seen within the mock–ups presented to the bottom right.
Services: Brand identity including logo, colour palette and typeface design, and social media template design.
