Straight talking people

Giving an audit and accountancy startup a brand with purpose

  • Visual identity
  • Web development
Semaphore patterns mixed with people - brand identity for Byrd + Link by Mighty, brand agency

Money talks. They translate.

The client: Byrd + Link

Accountancy can be pretty tricky to grasp. That’s why you go and hire other people to do it for you. We had previously worked with the two directors of Byrd + Link as part of another project, and we got to appreciate their honest and straightforward approach.

The moment of change: Changing the game

Byrd + Link were stepping away from a big accountancy firm to go it alone, and they wanted a brand that was the opposite of ‘big firm’ – something modern and fresh.

The problem was that they wanted to do this in the middle of lockdown. Luckily, at Mighty, we roll with the punches, so we took our brand process online.

A semaphore flag icon developed for Byrd + Link as part of their brand identity by Mighty, brand agency Semaphore flag icon developed for Byrd + Link as part of their brand identity by Mighty, brand agency

The plan we made

We started out with a fact-find to get to the heart of what made Byrd + Link different from the huge corporate number-crunchers, and we brought the two of them together on Zoom (excuse me, you’re on mute, mate …) to challenge their thinking and figure out exactly what they want to say.

The two of them were specialists in audits, which is a decidedly unsexy part of accountancy. It’s also usually complicated and annoying, even for large businesses that are used to this kind of process. What Byrd + Link do is make it nice and simple, which gave us a brilliant idea.  

What Byrd + Link do is take a complicated subject and make it easy to understand – just like us. This gave us scope to play with iconography and create a timeless brand.

Two accountants speaking to each other in a black and yellow office with the Byrd + Link logo overlaid on top. Part of a brand identity project by Mighty, brand agency
Semaphore alphabet

The story we told

When thinking about audits and the complexity of them, we thought about symbols –how they can be confusing to those who don’t understand them, but perfectly clear to those who do. That led us to nautical code flags and the phonetic alphabet. If you’re not a sailor, you likely don’t have a clue what each flag means, but if you do, it makes messages easy to understand at sea.

We took the code flags and used the Bravo flag as the basic shape for our logo, paired with a contemporary font that would look fantastic on a whole bunch of collateral. In the fact-find, one phrase that came across consistently was “we’re straight-talking”, so we took that to form our strapline: Straight-Talking People.

Posters for Byrd + Link with the straplines "Money talks. We translate." and "Status symbols." Created as part of a branding project by Mighty, brand agency
Semaphore flag icons developed for Byrd + Link as part of their brand identity by Mighty, brand agency A notebook design for Byrd + Link by Mighty, brand agency

As well as a brand, Byrd + Link needed a website, so we built them a simple WordPress site that would get across everything they needed. Using the tone of voice we’d developed for the brand, we wrote all the copy, too, helping to set people straight on whether they needed an audit or not, and what they could expect from working with Byrd + Link.

Finally, we used the shapes from the code flags that represented the letters in Byrd + Link to create animations and graphics that tied it all together nicely.

A hoarding design for Byrd + Link with the tagline "Symbols of success." by Mighty, brand agency

The Mighty change

The brand we created set Byrd + Link off on the best foot possible, even through difficult circumstances. Since launching, the senior team has doubled in size, and they’ve been working with multi-million-pound businesses across the country. The firm has doubled down on the audit side of things to make that the main focus of the business, which has taken them from strength to strength.

The Byrd + Link website on a tablet, featuring animation. Designed by Mighty, digital agency Icons developed for Byrd + Link as part of their brand identity by Mighty, brand agency