A Western Canadian legend
goes East.
Market Analysis | Brand identity | Visual identity | Marketing | Social Media Managment | Photo & Video
Denbigh Fine Art Services is Western Canada’s premier art handling company, with over 30 years of experience transporting, storing and installing high-value works from Matisse to Jeff Wall.
Founded in 1975, the company was owner-operated until 2019 when it was acquired by the multinational French art handling organization, Andre Chenue. The new owners brought us a challenge. How could they refresh and expand the Denbigh brand without losing what had made it so successful?
01. Brand Identity.
Who is Denbigh?
Denbigh has a sterling reputation and deep connections with artists, institutions and galleries in Vancouver. To understand Denbigh as a brand, we needed to understand how it existed in the minds of its clients.
Trust is everything.
Handing over one-of-a-kind, high-value artwork requires a tremendous amount of trust. How did Denbigh build a reputation as the brand of choice for so many groups and individuals?
We conducted interviews with existing clients across multiple categories and found that reputation, professionalism and capacity are all critical. What makes Denbigh stand apart, however, is the one-on-one, human relationships they build with their clients.
“My experience with Denbigh is that it’s not just B2B, corporate to corporate, it’s also literally person to person. We know each other. Denbigh has a reputation as a company, but it’s the individuals handling our art who I trust.”
Client interview excerpt
Wendy Chang, Director
Rennie Collection
A human brand.
With these key insights, we knew we needed to build the Denbigh brand around relationships. To celebrate the partnerships Denbigh had made over the years as a way of building new ones. And to make a brand that wasn’t cool and corporate but warm, dynamic and alive.
Denbigh brand video
Produced by lobby
02. Visual Identity.
Same but different.
Denbigh’s visual identity hadn't been updated in years, so we had a great opportunity to refresh the look and bring it into alignment with the newly clarified brand. Our goal was to produce something fresh and modern without sacrificing Denbigh’s existing brand recognition.
Approachable, modern, bold.
We centred the new look around the brand’s distinctive name, updating the wordmark and primary typeface with a clear, friendly sans serif. We removed the heavy black from the logo and chose a bright, bold red as the brand’s primary colour. Denbigh’s service offerings were highlighted with a series of illustrations that mirrored the simple, clean lines of the typeface.
En Francais.
We carefully aligned every asset from truck decals to the website to match the new look. We worked closely with the team in Montreal and Paris to make every asset available in French with special care being paid to nuances of Québécois French.
03. Marketing
Reputation and community.
Our marketing data and client interviews showed us that Instagram was the platform of choice for art professionals to engage and connect. We chose to develop this platform as a way to showcase the brand and celebrate the community Denbigh had been building for decades.
Right message, right crowd.
With a clear brand identity, a fresh new look and strong social media, we had a strong foundation for our marketing campaign.
Using our customer profiles we ran digital and print campaigns, to engage specific segments in Western and Eastern Canada.
The results.
+ 700 Instagram followers
+ 1092 % website traffic yr/yr
+ 1118 % quote form clicks yr/yr
+ 263 % traffic from Quebec yr/yr
We’re just getting started.
Working with Denbigh we were able to help them understand the key elements of what made their brand so loved. We refined this into messaging and an identity that can be brought to new audiences in Canada and beyond.
Just like Denbigh, we see the value in lasting partnerships with our clients and we continue to work together, helping to bring their brand to markets around the world.