Tag: Design Bridge and Partners

The branding industry is constantly challenging agencies to innovate their ways of expressing brands’ identity. They are compelled to find the balance between representing brands while crafting unique messages that truly resonate with audiences. 

Design Bridge and Partners, as a brand design agency, built its foundation on its goal of being impactful. For the agency, success in the branding industry means moving people through its work with brands.

As part of this aim, Design Bridge and Partners recently appointed Alexandra Cerruti as its executive vice president, APAC.

In an exclusive interview with MARKETECH APAC, Alexandra dives deeper into her own strategy towards Design Bridge and Partner’s growth, leveraging collaboration and creativity to collectively bring impact to brands and their audiences.

Where strategy meets creativity

Design Bridge and Partners is a global brand design agency with 30 years of history in Asia, having studios in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangkok, among others. This speaks of the agency’s profound experience in the diverse market.

“In our industry, you’re only as good as your last project, but we’re fortunate to have built long-standing client relationships grounded in trust, honesty, and mutual respect. This foundation allows us to partner closely with clients and shape their brands holistically, creating cohesive and distinctive identity systems,” Alexandra shared.

While acknowledging the tough task of needing to stand out, Alexandra shares the agency’s advantage among competitors: blending strategy with creativity.

“Our competitive edge comes from pairing outstanding strategic thinking—defining what brands stand for—with exceptional creativity that ensures they stand out,” she said.

In her leadership, Alexandra values the empowerment of employees, seeing them as vital to sustainable business growth.

“Achieving growth requires balancing an external focus—delivering outstanding work, strengthening client relationships, and driving new business—with an equally strong internal focus on our people and culture,” she said.

“In my new role, I’ll continue to champion both our creative ambitions and our people, ensuring we grow not just in size, but in capability and culture,” she added.

High-performance culture for a powerful future

The brand design agency has a mission to “design brands with the power to move people.” However, this does not come easily for the company. Alexandra shares how the agency faces challenges as it operates in Singapore, a dynamic yet expensive market.

“The challenge is to consistently deliver exceptional work that drives real impact for our clients’ businesses, especially as clients are under increasing pressure to justify every investment,” Alexandra said.

Nonetheless, she reaffirms her goal of helping Design Bridge and Partners’ talents go beyond boundaries in unlocking creativity.

“We address this by ensuring every project delivers measurable value and by nurturing a high-performance culture where our teams are inspired to push creative boundaries while staying commercially focused,” she said.

Looking towards the future, Alexandra is approaching the complex branding industry with powerful ideas, injecting them into the practice of branding as a vital part of the process.

“My vision is to help our clients find and activate that core idea—the one that truly moves people—so their brands can connect emotionally and stand out in today’s crowded attention economy. At Design Bridge and Partners, we’ll continue translating strategy into bold, tangible expressions that resonate with audiences and drive brand growth,” Alexandra said.

In its quest to help brands express themselves across multiple channels, Design Bridge and Partners is prioritising impact. In Alexandra’s new role, she is approaching this wider mission with a simpler yet powerful strategy: the empowerment of employees as they step towards sustainable growth. With Alexandra and its entire team, Design Bridge and Partners is accelerating towards its greater goal: moving people with branding.

Singapore – Design Bridge and Partners (DBP), a brand design company, has appointed Charlie Lowe as its chief strategy officer for Asia-Pacific (APAC), effective immediately.

Lowe brings more than 15 years of agency experience, a decade of which he spent with Ogilvy. 

During his term at Ogilvy, Lowe worked with major brands such as IBM, VW, Nestle, British Airways, InterContinental Hotels, and Huawei. He handled various markets, including Melbourne, Beijing, Singapore, and New York.

Most recently, Lowe served as chief strategy officer at McCann Worldgroup, leading the agency’s growth in Southeast Asia with regional and global campaigns,

“When I started having discussions with Design Bridge & Partners about joining the team, everyone I spoke with was not only incredibly talented but also genuinely nice and engaging. Beyond being impressed by their list of exciting clients and work, I thought, ‘I really want to work with these people,’” Lowe said.

Alexandra Cerruti, APAC managing director of Design Bridge & Partners, commented, “Charlie isn’t your typical brand strategist. With a background in strategy within communications agencies, he brings a fresh and unique perspective to the team. As clients increasingly seek synergies and seamless brand experiences, the lines between branding and communications are becoming ever more interconnected. Charlie’s deep passion for brands, combined with his strategic insight, will be invaluable in helping us deliver holistic solutions that truly resonate with our clients. We’re excited to leverage his expertise to drive success and create meaningful brand experiences.”

Singapore – Community-based social service agency AMKFSC Community Services has unveiled a refreshed identity with the launch of a new logo and a new name, Allkin Singapore.

The new name ‘Allkin’, from the compound words ‘all’ and ‘kin’, represents the organisation’s spirit that embraces inclusivity, fosters togetherness, and kindles connections between employees, beneficiaries, and communities.

As a social service agency that serves people from all walks of life, the refreshed identity underscores Allkin’s identity and aspiration as an inclusive, forward-looking, and community-centric organisation that continues to work towards making a positive impact on communities.

Together with the new name, Allkin has also unveiled its brand new logo, which embodies the brand’s identity. With fresh blue hues and a splash of orange, the new logo is expected to evoke a feeling of trust, being grounded, hope, and optimism.

Meanwhile, the sparkle symbol incorporated into the logo represents the intersection of people, sparking new connections, ideas, and beginnings. The smile represents its welcoming, people-first nature, and the subtle ‘A’ is a nod to the agency’s history and legacy.

Allkin Singapore has tapped WPP’s creative company, Design Bridge and Partners, for their complete rebranding. The project was given in 2022, and the new name and logo were officially launched at Allkin’s 45th Anniversary Charity Dinner by guest-of-honour and patron Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Dr. Vincent Ng, CEO of Allkin Singapore, said, “To reflect our growth over the last 45 years and to reinforce our identity as an inclusive, forward-looking, and community-centric organisation, it is crucial for us to strengthen our identity to better encapsulate our renewed strategy, expanded scope of services, and geographical boundaries more accurately. We look forward to opening doors to new possibilities for Singapore’s social service sector by continuing to go above and beyond meeting the shifting needs of our society. Design Bridge and Partners were able to capture and bring to life this vision through Allkin.”

Meanwhile, Ambrish Chaudhry, head of strategy at Design Bridge and Partners, shared, “We take great pride in helping homegrown Singaporean brands reach their full potential. It has been a pleasure to work alongside the Allkin team, seeing them make a positive impact in the lives of Singaporeans every day. Our aim was to create an approachable identity that lives up to their ethos. The Allkin name alludes to their openness and willingness to serve the community as they journey beyond a family service centre. The visual identity brings in patterns sourced from the neighbourhoods they serve to make the brand feel fresh and familiar at the same time.”

Singapore – Geneo, the life sciences and innovation cluster for CapitaLand, has unveiled a new brand and visual identity which positions the brand as a destination “Where Ingenuity Comes to Life”, fostering the next generation of innovators, scientists and researchers to create positive impact.

Conceptualised alongside WPP’s Design Bridge and Partners, the new visual identity positions Geneo as a space that draws in a community of future-makers engaged with each other, at work and at play, a stage for human ingenuity. 

The name, Geneo, is inspired by the word ‘ingenuity’, with ‘gene’, the building block of sciences, embedded in it, as well as creating a moniker for the next generation of scientists – Generation Neo.

It is designed to capture the modern, collaborative approach in emergent science and technology, a visual representation of the organic nature of networks and interconnectivity. Reflecting the experience of the new cluster, these pathways could be organic, physical, social or digital, building and strengthening scientific communities in Singapore. 

Said vision is represented by the Geneo logo, which features a merging of DNA symbols as another nod to life sciences at the core of the brand, and a spark – an expression of the origins of life and innovation.

Scott Lambert, creative director at Design Bridge and Partners, said, “Big briefs like this can only be solved by a clear and compelling idea – these are the projects that get us excited. We were endlessly impressed by the insight, candour, and in the right moments, the courage of our senior client team, which set us up for success in name creation, strategy and design.

He added, “We mixed optimistic category cues, with bold moments of the unexpected. The spark is an ageless visual metaphor – representing the location, research and innovation conducted within, and also the vibrancy of the lifestyle offer. From there the design system literally ignites in motion and expands into a visual landscape. We’re all so excited to watch it grow.”

China – China Duty Free (cdf) Haikou has unveiled a new shopping centre in partnership with WPP’s Design Bridge and Partners. The ongoing collaboration can be seen in the development of its distinctive visual identity and fascinating environment. The brand’s dreamy presence will be retained while establishing a comprehensive ‘one-stop duty-free leisure destination’ with the updated brand design.

Design Bridge and Partners came up with a concept that goes beyond standard browsing after taking into account the changing expectations of Chinese consumers. The “Ultimate dream island” concept is employed to create a refined and energising shopping experience.

The cdf Haikou retail shopping experience fosters a link between reality and fantasy by mimicking a live island suspended between the skies and the sea. Visitors get a chance to explore the enchanted “Ultimate Dream Island,” travelling from the ocean’s depths to the ethereal skies and entering another dimension.

Moreover, the 280,000 square metre cdf Haikou International Duty Free City Shopping Complex lies on the west coast of Haikou City, Hainan. It provides people with a wide range of luxury products, tax-free dining and shopping experiences, as well as special online/offline premium membership services. The primary visuals for cdf Haikou’s grand launch integrate with the duty-free areas while evoking Peter Pan’s Neverland and emphasising the marine and natural aspects of the city. 

Design Bridge and Partners came up with a concept that goes beyond standard browsing after taking into account the changing expectations of Chinese consumers. The “Ultimate dream island” concept is employed to create a refined and energising shopping experience.

The cdf Haikou retail shopping experience fosters a link between reality and fantasy by mimicking a live island suspended between the skies and the sea. Visitors get a chance to explore the enchanted “Ultimate Dream Island,” travelling from the ocean’s depths to the ethereal skies and entering another dimension. Moreover, the complex’s virtual setting is built to adapt and produce one-of-a-kind scenes that seamlessly merge with brand narratives, providing guests with limitless excursions and engrossing tales to explore.

Nikki Lin, managing director at Design Bridge and Partners China, said, “This project is a perfect example of revolutionary design and how our teams create experiences based on consumer insight and brand ethos. Design becomes the heart of the story with the power and ability to connect touchpoints,” 

“We are now working closely together with China Duty Free on a few projects, including the rebranding of CDF group and the membership branding, which will continuously enhance our long term partnership,” he added.

Singapore – Go-Ventures, an investment firm focused on the Southeast Asia region, has announced its rebranding effort to Argor, signaling the firm’s strategic direction and independence as it targets high-growth start-ups across the region.

The Argor rebrand was made possible by WPP’s Design Bridge and Partners, and is underpinned by the brand message ‘genuine performance, representing the firm’s mission to be truly authentic in its commitment to founders and investors.

The new brand name ‘Argor’ – derived from the words “ardor”, “rigor” and “Go” – was created by Design Bridge and Partners to convey the dynamism, transparency and relentless pursuit of excellence that Argor encapsulates in its mission to support Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing companies. The name has been brought to life through a new logo – a bold and sleek wordmark – crafted to reflect Argor’s determination to always create impact in everything they do.

Moreover, a fresh, distinctive and contemporary colour palette and combined typeface have also been designed to serve as a manifestation of the brand. The dark green colours throughout the identity deliver on trust, experience and gravitas while the light blue indicates Argor’s openness towards different partnerships and experiences. Injecting a distinct pop of vibrance to the colour palette is bright orange, which represents the brand’s tenacity and the bold ambitions they have set sight on. The fonts, Canela Text and Archivo, a modern and sophisticated combination, have been chosen as the brand’s typography to be used across all brand communications.

Lastly, Argor’s new photography style will further enhance its brand mission. Abstract images establish them as a strong but quiet force, capturing the trails of impact they leave behind, whilst environmental imagery can be used to tell the brand story and mission, focusing on unique perspectives and capturing the alluring charm of Indonesia’s landscapes. People’s photography will be natural and relatable, showcasing its collaborative spirit and attention to detail.

Ambrish Chaudhry, head of strategy at Design Bridge and Partners, said, “It was a privilege to support Argor in its journey to re-establish its identity at a time of strong growth for the brand. Together we have built an exciting and refreshing identity that captures its commitment to founders and the investor community, maintains its important connection to GoTo and bakes authenticity and passion into its very DNA.” 

Hong Kong – Global financial services company HSBC and Hong Kong’s flag carrier airline Cathay Pacific leads the list of the strongest brands in the region, according to the latest ranking made by Design Bridge and Partners in partnership with Kantar.

They are then followed by rewards club Yuu, followed by the public transport network MTR, global fast-food chain McDonald’s, local bank Hang Seng Bank, insurance provider AIA, local telco SmarTone, lifestyle app foodpanda, and insurance provider Manulife.

Other notable brands that made into the list include skincare brand Shiseido, luxury watch brand Rolex, fast food chain Kentucky, hotel chains Shangri-La and The Prudential, amongst others.

The ranking revealed the theme of ‘value-seeking’. Hong Kongers love bargains and like to feel that they’re ‘gaming the system’; this explains why so many brands offer great value or help consumers seek out the best deals. According to the research, the luxury market is still going strong, however, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing, with luxury businesses that build desire into their marketing. The love of luxury and good deals aren’t in opposition though – for Hong Kong consumers, it’s all about value.

One key contrast the report also uncovered was that of local versus international. Despite being shut off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong is still an international hub with globally connected brands – five of the top 10 are Hong Kong brands, with HSBC taking the top spot. This strong local identity and heritage coupled with an international outlook and reach is a melting pot for creativity and effective design – with Hong Kong’s strongest brands representing both these values.

Hannah Duley, managing director at Design Bridge and Partners Hong Kong said, “Tomorrow’s world is placing more challenges on brands and their business, with harder-to-please consumer expectations and harder-to-predict market trends. But businesses that invest in their brands, especially in the age of disruption and volatility, still outperform in the market. It has proved that great brand design often comes with great brand results, both tangible and intangible. With the power of design, brands can give unity to every diverse aspect to form a compelling brand and create distinct meanings.”

Meanwhile, Jason Spencer, managing director at Kantar BrandZ, commented, “Hong Kong has always been seen as a land full of contradictions. This inaugural report reinforces this juxtaposition clearly as we see how dramatically different brands appear side by side in the rankings. With this in mind, pinpointing the DNA of a HK brand we found was a difficult task and in the end, we realised that it was a futile one as there is no one way to define what a Hong Kong brand truly is – they have dual utility and leverage the best of both worlds no matter the context.”

Singapore – Integrated communications network WPP has officially launched its new global design company, Design Bridge and Partners. The new firm is a result of a merger between Design Bridge and Superunion, which was announced in 2022. 

The two complementary companies come together with a vision to fundamentally redefine the role of design “for a new era,” positioning it at the forefront of business growth and social change through consumer, business and experience design. 

John Morris, formerly CEO of Design Bridge, will serve as Group CEO, and Jim Prior, who was previously CEO of Superunion, will become the new company’s chairman. Meanwhile, Mark Budden will pick up duties as chairman for Asia-Pacific. 

“We fundamentally believe that design is one of the most powerful tools in business, and yet it’s historically been underutilized. As Design Bridge and Partners, we’re on a mission to change that, and simultaneously help shape the future of organizations worldwide by unleashing the full power of design,” said Morris. “For us, it’s not just a matter of what design is, but also what design can do, for brands, businesses, people and the planet —and the role design can play in answering the fundamental questions of the world today.” 

Budden added, “We believe that design is the singular thread that can unify any brand, able to create distinct meaning inside every moment, interaction and customer touchpoint. At Design Bridge and Partners, we’re helping brands across sectors harness this incredible power and simultaneously redefining the role of design in our world at the same time.” 

WPP shares that Design Bridge and Partners is uniquely positioned at the leading edge of design to address client challenges. It will be pulling together top talent from across its 850-person strong network operating in 12 countries to help “unlock potential” for brands, businesses, and people alike.

In Asia, Design Bridge and Partners currently has studios in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and China with clients such as Diageo, HSBC, Tencent, Colgate-Palmolive, The Coca-Cola Company, Trust Bank, Resorts World, Unilever, Mondelēz and Shangri-La in their remit. 

Alexandra Cerruti, the managing director for Singapore, Southeast Asia, and India, said, “With a team of 100 people united under the same roof in Singapore and growing satellites in the region, we are now this powerhouse of design and can expand our partnerships with top clients in the region but also recruit the best talents.” 

The company boasts centres of excellence in strategic locations such as New York, London, São Paulo, Amsterdam, Singapore, Madrid, Berlin, and Shanghai. It will be offering brand strategy, identity, experience, and brand guardianship, which will include graphic, motion, digital, physical, and communication design. 

“It’s no secret that our world is at a tipping point, globally tied together and yet fragmented in ways which we might not have imagined previously. Design will not only help answer the big questions, how we progress as people, as businesses, but ultimately help to create both harmony and connection as well,” added Morris. 

One-half of the merger, Superunion, had been responsible for the brand management of top brands in the region prior to being consolidated into the new firm. These include Shangri-La Group, World Table Tennis, Trust Bank, and even taking after the branding of cities such as Shenzhen’s Nantou City.