CR Blog
A mark for Lark
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 14 March 2012, 14:14 Permalink Comments (7)

ASHA has created a brand positioning, mark and identity for Lark, a 60 year-old insurance company, that focuses on the company's heritage and its tailor-made products

Lark was founded in 1948 as a family business and has offices in London and the south-east. According to ASHA, it wanted to highlight its heritage and also the fact that it specialises in providing bespoke insurance products, in contrast to the services offered by bigger players. The design consultancy decided that the latter was what made Lark stand apart and so chose to concentrate the new identity and positioning around that.
A new mark uses a bespoke typeface and incorporates the outline of the eponymous bird into the R of the company name (shown top).
Lark apparently offers insurance cover for specialist items such as musical instruments as well as for cars and travel. ASHA created a series of stamps for each of these areas which also incorporate the year the busines was founded and the words 'made to measure'. The crests are used on literature and on the website.

A new colour scheme is derived form the colours of the lark itself.




Note the lark-shaped paper clip too.
Instead of stock photography, ASHA created a set of drawings based on tailor's patterns for use in literature.



It's evident that a great deal of care has been taken over every aspect of this project. The result is a beautifully crafted job for what, on the face of it, could be a fairly unappetising client and a brand that stands out markedly against its competitors.

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7 Comments
Truly beautiful, well-thought out stuff.
Outstanding job by ASHA and respect to Lark - this kind of work doesn't happen without a great client behind it too.
2012-03-14 15:06:10
The positioning certainly helps give the insurance company a more accessible appearance, it doesn't look as authoritative or aggressive as some insurance companies – I guess this could work both for and against them.
The badges are cute and unexpected, but they wouldn't look out of place as novelty beer labels. Think my favourite piece is the bird shaped paperclip. Nice to something a little 'friendlier' than usual.
2012-03-14 15:13:49
Parts of this identity are lovely, the illustrations, the colours and paper clip is a nice touch as mentioned, but I find the crests for the products and services rather fussy and as part of a larger identity system a lot of different complex forms for the customer to remember (especially if I did a lot of business there) but overall it feels like a solid well crafted identity.
2012-03-14 18:05:32
Know way too many clients who would have rejected the graphical flourishes that really make this project, out of hand: "lovely idea guys, but we just haven't got the budget/time etc"
Lovely concept, beautifully crafted. Well done.
2012-03-15 13:12:09
Lovely stuff with great attention to detail. I like the stamp idea, a playful hark back to quality.
Agree with @Emeka i.e credit to the client working with the concept.
2012-03-15 14:42:36
nice work well execution
2012-03-18 21:11:35
Beautiful.
2012-03-19 22:49:46
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