Digital Lifelines Scotland seeks to improve digital inclusion and to design digital solutions that better meet people’s needs, to improve the health outcomes for people who use drugs, reducing the risk of harm and death.

Maguires were appointed to create a modern and dynamic brand to help DLS continue its valuable work in both the digital and physical worlds.

At the heart of the new brand marque are subtle references to the letters ‘d’ and ‘l’ encased within a series of interconnected curves. As Digital Lifelines Scotland is funded by Scottish Government and run as a partnership programme, these curves are designed to represent both the collaborative make-up of DLS, as well as the supportive nature of their work. The overall visual effect of these interconnecting curves provides the new brand with a distinct digital ‘fingerprint’ marque, with the line forms influenced by circuit boards. Finally, the vibrant colour palette was chosen to represent the scottish element of the organisation, with the colours based upon a Scottish thistle, sitting against a bright blue sky.

The brand also required a highly adaptive brand system to allow staff the tools to create a wide-variety of branded communications from issuing reports and papers, to presenting and attending various events and conferences.

The Scottish Equestrian Centre is Scotland’s only 5 star Equestrian Centre.

Founded in 1985, and still family-run, SEC has a reputation for excellence, having attained British Horse Society approval for their training and exam centre, as well as being awarded 5 stars by VisitScotland. The Scottish Equestrian Centre is also home to a 4 star B&B, welcoming guests to experience authentic horse-riding trips from across the globe.

Maguires were appointed to create a new brand identity and website for The Scottish Equestrian Centre as well as capturing a range of photographic and video content for the website and newly launched instagram channel.

The new brand marque sought to provide SEC with a fresh take on the traditional horse iconography often associated with equestrian sports. The angular and dynamic triangular edges of the logo were mirrored in the choice of font, helping provide the brand with a sense of modernity and movement.

The traditional red, seen across the centre’s saddles and riding livery, was retained and modernised for the new brand. This simple, but striking, colour palette was incorporated across the web design. The site itself had a variety of functions; a sales tool for lessons and riding trips as well as a booking site for the centre’s busy B&B, complete with tourist information on the wider area.

The Secret Sandwich Co. is an Edinburgh based start-up from established restauranteurs The Rocca Group.

Offering hearty sandwiches freshly-made in their Edinburgh kitchen, the brand needed a distinct and playful identity to match it’s name.

Maguires created a unique logo marque, strap-line and graphic style to provide the in-house marketing team with a range of options for packaging and social media advertising.

Launched in mid-2022, the Secret Sandwich Co. is already less of a secret, with its deliciously hand-made (and imaginatively named) sandwiches now a firm favourite with taste-makers across the capital.

The Rocca Group was looking to expand its evening offering with the opening of Ciao, a specialist cocktail bar set within Rico’s, the renowned eatery on North Castle St in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town.

Maguires were commissioned to create the brand for the new bar, having worked with The Rocca Group creating social content for Rico’s as well as their two sister venues: The Michelin-guided Seafood Ristorante in St Andrew’s and The Broughton in Edinburgh.

Opening November 2022, Ciao offers delicious drinks alongside cicchetti – small Italian snacks – as well as a lunch menu freshly prepared by the famed Rico’s kitchen. Their resident mixologists pride themselves on the The Negroni, a classic Italian cocktail containing gin, campari and sweet vermouth. As well as the classic version, many variations on the classic cocktail also appear on their extensive drinks menu. 

Currently under development on the site of the former British Home Stores on Union Street, Aberdeen Market is set to be a unique destination featuring international food and drink outlets, local traders, businesses and artisan workshops.

Having worked with Savills on marketing a number of high profile commercial properties on Glasgow’s renowned ‘Style Mile’, Maguires was approached to create a bold and modern identity for the development.

Taking inspiration from the triangular structures set within the unique roof canopy, coupled with the mix of modern materials present in the interior, we created a distinct logo marque and accompanying marketing brochure, as well as a number of striking window vinyls and adverting hoardings on Union Street.

Former Sassoon Colour Director Emma Loen is a rising star within the hairdressing profession. In 2022 she initiated a new venture and opened her first independent salon in Finnieston, Glasgow, offering an exceptional, bespoke hair care experience within a collaborative and creative space.

To realise the full potential of her new salon, Emma required stylish and contemporary branding which would roll out across an extensive range of offline and online assets. 

Working closely with Emma, we designed a full logo suite including logotype and graphic marque variations, external signage, business cards, website with book online functionality, service menus, gift cards, wrapping tissue paper, tote and paper bags, and even slipmats for in-house DJ turntables.

Emma also commissioned Maguires to produce a brand film, stills and social content. To date, the brand film has reached 94,128 people based within Scotland, with 6,844 link clicks to the Emma Loen website. 

Since launching in April, Emma’s business has gone from strength to strength, with an ever-growing client list and an upcoming ‘salon collection’ launch scheduled for March 2023.

Following the post-pandemic return of supporters to football stadiums in Scotland, Celtic Football Club approached Maguires to design the banners that line the paved approach to the front of the stadium – known as ‘The Celtic Way’.

Having worked with the club in 2020 to redesign the tunnel and player areas within the stadium, we had begun developing a strong typographical style based upon key figures and phrases from the club’s history, coupled with a tweaked colour palette. The club were keen to see this new style adapted to The Celtic Way, with the message ‘One Club Since 1888’ brought to life.

We decided to approach the design of all 20 banners separately, giving each word and date their own unique typographic treatment, encased within green and white blocks to mimic the famous Celtic hoops when viewed together.

The variety of designs provided for the banners were so wide-ranging that the club decided to incorporate a variety of the graphic elements into the match day comms created by their in-house team for the upcoming season.

The Rum Slinger is a Glasgow-based service offering its customers the ability to subscribe to a monthly delivery of three expertly selected rums from around the world.

Each month takes on a geographic theme, with tasting notes accompanying each letterbox-sized package.

Maguires were appointed to provide a social toolkit to give the start-up much-needed content to serve to prospective customers, at a time when the UK was still in lockdown.

We provided product photography tied to the theme of each release, a brand video, and a series of eye-catching typographic treatments to supplement their own organic offering.

Can Do is a collaborative enterprise that was launched in 2013, set up to support entrepreneurship and business innovation within Scotland.

Throughout the year they host a programme of large-scale events that bring SMEs and start-ups together to promote creativity and opportunity within their fields.

In 2021, Maguires were tasked with refreshing the existing brand identity, which would be used widely throughout their social media, website, and other digital platforms.

We approached the project by creating a folded typographic style, that together with a new colour palette and accompanying graphical elements, helped better position the brand in a forward-facing sector. Finally, we brought the brand to life with an intricate animated ident that uses kinitec motion that locks into place as the logo builds.

The C&C Restaurant Group owns and operates a number of well-known restaurants in Glasgow’s City Centre, West End and Southside. Maguires were brought on board midway through 2021 to provide creative content and brand direction for two of their best-known restaurant brands, plus another exciting venue that was to launch in July.

The first of which was Halloumi, a Greek-Cypriot Mezze restaurant chain with locations in the heart of Glasgow City Centre and the trendy Southside. 

The client was keen to retain the existing logo type but felt the brand needed a distinctive tone of voice and a bolder creative positioning across their social channels.

We began by developing an expanded logo marque to incorporate a brand strapline, followed by a fresh graphic style and a wider colour palette. This graphic style took the form of a modern pattern device that referenced traditional mosaics, but featured a minimalist take on various ingredients and Greek iconography. The blocks of the pattern could then be deployed together, or separately, as part of a regular series of short animations designed to bring to life an irreverent new tone of voice, with offers and one-liners.

Regular food photography and short films were also provided on a monthly basis by our in-house team at Maguires, driving increased engagement over the 6-month period to date.

Urban Grocer are a family-run business with a rich heritage in the fresh fruit and vegetables wholesaling industry, dating back over 70 years.

The Urban Grocer brand was launched in 2013 to supply fresh produce straight to restaurant kitchens. In 2020, against the backdrop of the first National lockdown, they decided to take that experience and expertise and offer a direct-to-consumer delivery service.

Customers can choose from a range of expertly curated fresh fruit and vegetable boxes as well as offering a range of premium pantry items and high-quality meat and poultry.

Maguires created a fresh brand identity and a bespoke suite of food photography in order to help the Urban Grocer brand ma­ke the transition to a UK-wide delivery service.

The new brand identity was launched in early December 2020, as part of a targeted social campaign. Maguires produced an animated explainer video to help showcase the service to new customers as well as a series of product-specific remarketing campaigns and seasonal box promotions and mailers.

As part of an ongoing creative retainer, we will be developing new marketing strategies to help expand their customer base, creating new content to improve social engagement and build brand recognition throughout the UK.

First Place Betting Jobs is a boutique recruitment agency, dedicated to attracting the best global talent for the iGaming industry.

In early 2020, Maguires created the brand name, brand identity and creative concept to provide market cut-through in a highly competitive sector.

By creating a series of bespoke 3D renders, featuring sporting, gambling and gaming iconography, we were able to develop a playful headline style for the nascent brand.

These creative assets and tone-of-voice guides would go on to form a creative toolkit that was then delivered to the client’s existing digital agency, allowing them to produce a series of recruitment ads on Linkedin on their website.

The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) is part of the Scottish Funding Council’s Innovation Centre Programme, which is designed to support transformational collaboration between universities and businesses.

Following a successful tender submission, Maguires were appointed to reposition the brand identity for DHI – a partnership between the University of Strathclyde and Glasgow School of Art.

Our brief was to move the existing brand marque forward before developing a fresh graphic style and accompanying corporate toolkit that better represented the future-facing nature of the organisation.

Alongside a robust brand guidelines document, we produced a series of templates for the in-house design team for a varied degree of internal and external applications. These ranged from White Paper reports to infographics, merchandising and exhibition materials.