Brand, Digital & Motion Design for Future Marine Research Infrastructure
Future Marine Research Infrastructure is a government-funded UKRI Natural Environment Research Council programme with a bold mission; to push the boundaries of environmental science while securing the UK’s position as a global leader in marine research. Their community-driven approach aims to give UK scientists access to cutting-edge research capabilities, enabling world-leading marine science to help tackle the biggest challenges facing our ocean.
FMRI and their communications challenge
They came to us via a personal recommendation at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton needing support to upgrade infographics, enhance branding and expand their digital marketing. We got together to get our heads around what they do and figure out how we could help – straight away we clicked with their comms team.
There was a lot of listening to be done here – FMRI operate in a space where agility is everything. Policies and perspectives change like the tide, and they need to keep their different stakeholders on board and in the loop as the programme develops. And, well, who doesn’t want to work on a tech innovation project like this?
“Working with Fruitful was an excellent experience. The team took a highly collaborative approach, investing time to understand our requirements while challenging our assumptions with expert insight and constructive advice. Throughout the project they were responsive, flexible and focused on delivering the right outcomes. The result is a high-quality website that fully meets our needs, and I would strongly recommend Fruitful to any organisation looking for a knowledgeable and trusted design agency.”
How we became great design and marketing partners
Having partnered on numerous UKRI projects before, we knew we could offer value – not just in terms of creative output and production, but in helping them navigate a fast-changing and complex communications challenge. FMRI had a brand identity and graphic system they needed to evolve, and we helped them find ways to make it feel like the future them.
Together we developed a timeline of technical, political and financial milestones, a trajectory that was most likely, and created design solutions around it. Consistency with flexibility, distinctive style with limited detail, clarity with abstraction – we baked these design principles into the visual language to make it robust to reality.
Brand identity and design system
Colour, typography, language, illustration, photography – all the finer details and nuance that make design systems work. We started by exploring and playing with these building blocks on a specific first task; visualising and articulating an overview of what the infrastructure actually looks like. No plugins, themes or design mockups – just scribbles, opinions, messy vector files and getting our hands dirty. We talked a lot. About how marine autonomy is reshaping what’s possible and expanding the horizons of ocean discovery. About Octonauts, Mr. Miyagi and International Klein Blue. The stuff that all filters through to make change that makes marketing distinctive and relevant.
Website design and content management
The real sea change in our work with FMRI came with the development of the new website. Putting our design thinking and brand assets to work to create an agile, scalable system to get their digital marketing where it needed to be.
We ran regular strategic workshops to model content journeys and architecture and stress test user interface design together. And through all of this we were constantly iterating and discovering. New ways to say things leading to stronger messaging. Better ways to show the potential of autonomous technology and infrastructure. How to design the content management system around their internal processes and capabilities.
“Fruitful guided us through every stage, from back-end functionality to front-end design, helping us make informed decisions. This gave us the confidence to be ambitious and even rethink aspects of our approach. Our previous website was basic and struggled to engage audiences. The new site is a complete transformation; it’s dynamic, engaging, and tailored to our stakeholders, while looking fantastic. We’re proud of the result and now have a website that feels like a true reflection of who we are as an organisation.”