The Brief
First Choice Homes Oldham runs a full programme of resident involvement: forums, mystery shoppers, digital champions, and volunteering. Activity sat under the main FCHO brand, though each strand looked and sounded different. The customer involvement team asked for a clear, approachable sub-brand that would bring this work together and speak directly to residents.
The brief covered a broad mix of formats: estate posters, community room materials, letters, presentations, and digital assets. Each piece needed to feel part of one involvement programme while still making space for specific roles and activities.
Choosing The Design
Resident audiences covered a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and literacy levels. Materials needed strong hierarchy, clear language, and visuals that work on noticeboards, in corridors, and in packs sent through the post. Everything had to stay accessible and easy to reproduce on standard council printers and in everyday software.
We designed a character-led illustration system that represents different ways residents can contribute: neighbourhood planning, digital support, mystery shopping, forums, and more. Each role has a clear icon and visual treatment, which helps residents recognise opportunities at a glance and gives internal teams a flexible toolkit for future campaigns.
Putting It All Together
The visual language supports FCHO’s mission to build thriving, independent communities. We used simple, geometric forms and a structured colour system inspired by material design principles. This gave the team a palette that feels modern and familiar and still delivers strong contrast and clear structure across posters, leaflets, slides, and digital content.
We created a core cast of characters and scenarios that cover key involvement roles. Each has a consistent layout: illustration, role title, short plain-English description, and a strong colour block. The team can drop this structure into estate posters, handouts, and presentations, swap copy, and stay on brand.
We then rolled the system out across a set of channel-ready assets: print-ready posters and flyers, digital banners, presentation graphics, and guidance for internal use. The brand now has a repeatable pattern that supports new campaigns without a full redesign each time.
Firstly, we created our characters. We made Tim, Andi, Dipesh, Avril and Suzi to start with. Four characters were for the initial customer involvement posters, and in addition, any subsequent ones were used in other creatives. We also matched each character with a task. Andi was our VIP Superstar. Tim was our neighbourhood planner. Suzi was our mystery shopper, and Dipesh was our digital champion.
Finally, we matched our characters with a material colour palette background and appropriate wording. The result is these colourful and eye-catching designs!
What this gives the client
The customer involvement team now has:
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A clear visual identity for engagement activity, distinct from general housing communication
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A set of illustrations and layouts that work across print and digital
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Simple rules that help staff produce consistent, on-brand materials in-house
The sub-brand supports long-term resident engagement, rather than a single campaign. It gives FCHO a visual platform they can extend into future projects, landing pages, and digital content as involvement work evolves.
Public sector engagement needs a usable brand system
Housing associations and local authorities run complex engagement and involvement programmes. Residents see posters, letters, emails, and social content from multiple teams. A clear sub-brand gives those teams a shared language and tools they can pick up quickly.
We design visual systems that:
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Keep engagement materials accessible and council-ready
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Scale from print to web, email, and paid campaigns
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Support future work on landing pages, SEO, and performance marketing
If your resident or customer involvement activity feels scattered across channels, we can help you build a cohesive brand system that delivers.
Turn resident engagement into a usable brand system
If your housing or public sector teams juggle posters, letters, and digital content with no shared look or structure, we build visual systems that bring everything together. Talk to us about sub-brands, campaigns, and websites that residents recognise and teams actually use.
