Description:

Everyone should be able to connect. Able to understand the story, able to share the laughter, able to enjoy the show. But for more than a million New Zealanders in the blind and hard-of-hearing communities, connecting can be a challenge.

Able is a not-for-profit organisation working towards a more inclusive Aotearoa, in which every person has equal access to the world of culture, information and entertainment. They are the leading provider of access services in New Zealand, providing subtitles, captions (CC) and audio description (AD) across the country's broadcasters so that every New Zealander can connect with the media world around them. This means inclusion for the 880,000+ Kiwis who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing, and for the 180,000+ who are blind or have low vision.

We partnered with Able to refresh and elevate their brand from a functional, pragmatic one, to one that connected more emotively to what they do. With a variety of audiences, from industry partners, CC/AD users and Government agencies to potential employees, our task was to create a brand that better communicated Able’s story, impact and capability in a fresh, contemporary and accessible way.

Accessibility was at the forefront of every decision for this project and as such, colour played a major role in ensuring equal access to the brand and its applications. With a creative strategy based around ‘Connection’ we evolved their existing brand into a more dynamic, flexible design system. Alongside aspects such as scale, contrast and type, colour was a key consideration to bring warmth and inclusiveness to the brand. As well as being visually engaging, each colour and its combinations were contrast ratio tested to ensure executions like the website met WCAG 2.1 AAA accessibility requirements.

Able are a leading voice in the industry, advocating for accessible content every step of the way, turning content into the shared experience it was made to be, and creating a more inclusive Aotearoa. It was a pleasure to create a brand that reflected their story.

E whakapono ana mātau kia ngākau tuwhera a Aotearoa.