Care UK is a leading independent provider of healthcare and social services, providing hospitals, treatment centres, care homes and day care facilities. Their residential care homes specialise in caring for people who live with dementia. They provide personalised support programs to help each resident enjoy life as much and as independently as possible delivered by specially trained staff who use very specific environmental design mechanisms to help trigger memory.
Care UK engaged Space 11 to review the branding of their 120 residential care homes and consider the needs of it’s residents. The initial focus was on the external visitor journey, drawing on Space 11’s approach to customer journey analysis in retail. The scope expanded to develop architectural brand and signage guidelines and site roll out documentation for their ongoing build schedule.
The insight
Unlike their other medical facilities where patient stress can be the overriding factor, residential care homes are very different.
The primary visitors to a care home are the family and dependants of current and prospective residents. They seek reassurance that their elderly loved-ones will be secure, safe and happy in a home-like environment, and will be treated with dignity and respect. These communication cues challenged the conventional medical branding, which suggests institutional environments for short term use.
This led us to deliver an unconventional branding solution, where as well as designing signage with resilient, permanent materials, such as brick, solid surface resin and fabricated metal, we also considered how these elements could be permanently anchored to the landscape using planting choice to reinforce Care UK’s brand colours, evoke memories and communicate “life”.
Services we provided:
- Visitor journey analysis. Mapping touch points against visitor need
- Communication hierarchy. Identifying spectrum of communication types – brand, way finding, identification, statutory
- Signage & communication design
- Landscape integration
- Brand and signage guidelines
- Roll out documentation
The result
“I have worked with and commissioned Space 11 while at Care UK to support the business in the design & branding to ensure we communicate with our customers in the appropriate manor. The level of service received from Matt and the team; their guidance and support, knowledge and expertise and services of planning, concept design & delivery is invaluable and quality of work is second to none.”
Steve Dampier, Head of Customer Service, Care UK
