Driving hassle-free parking through brand identity

The UK’s number one car park company NCP, needed our creative expertise to support with the development, sub-branding and launch of their new parking product ParkPass to help drive quick, easy and hassle-free parking.

The easy way to park and pay

With ParkPass, NCP is evolving their brand to embrace cashless parking and digitalisation. The ParkPass product provides customers with a more seamless parking experience, allowing customers to park at 250 NCP car parks across the UK and pay for their stay using a card or via the app. No need to queue at a pay machine, deal with different parking platforms or worry about losing your ticket ever again.

With ParkPass, NCP wanted to create a sense of membership amongst customers and help drive loyalty to the parking brand.

Brand strategy fueled by insight

ParkPass needed a new identity that was inline with other NCP products but would also work as a standalone sub-brand. The identity would need to have the flex to adapt to multiple platforms such as print, digital and email.

Working with research the client had collected, we strategically brought this insight to life through branding. The ParkPass branding evolved through NCP piloting and testing the brand with customers during the design process, with Rawww’s support on assets and creative.

Part of this brand strategy also included defining the tone of voice that would be used across all ParkPass assets. Copy needed to be direct but not overpowering, friendly and helpful without being bossy.

Moving towards a new brand identity

NCP wanted to bring an element of movement into the ParkPass logo design, as well as keeping it inline with the overarching NCP brand. This idea of movement and direction is subtly seen in the logotype, where the letter ‘K’ is formed using a chevron arrow, a design element that’s also used across other NCP assets.

To tie in with other parking products, we maintained consistency by using the NCP brand colour palette and typeface Conduit ITC Bold. We also introduced the pin icon into the ParkPass brand identity, as it’s a shape that has strong connotations with travel, directions and map signage.

Using bespoke illustrations to accelerate ahead

To bring the brand to life and to provide the standout to attract customer attention, we created a set of 3D illustrations to use across marketing assets. All of the bespoke illustrations help to add personality to the brand - whether it’s a car, mobile phone or computer screen - and can be animated when used on digital platforms to add that extra layer of brand stand out and capture the attention of users.

Driving consistency in design

To ensure all future ParkPass designs and promotions are consistent, we developed a style guide for the NCP team to use. This provides a centralised resource for logotype, colour and typeface references and usage guides. The style guide proved highly useful when NCP later rolled out their ParkPass product to be available in both card and digital app format, to ensure consistent branding across all platforms.