It’s 60 years since ad-man Wally Olins and designer Michael Wolff opened the doors of a new branding company in Camden Town, London. Over the past six decades, Wolff Olins has been one of the design world’s most consistently creative studios.
Global ECD Emma Barratt reflects on that legacy, and picks six projects that encapsulate the agency’s innovative spirit…
In today’s world, design moves fast. But in the rush towards whatever’s next, we are in danger of forgetting what it takes to shape genuine progress.
For 60 years, Wolff Olins has pushed the boundaries of what branding can be. Not by being popular. Not by following trends. Definitely not by playing it safe.
We’ve often made things weird, maybe even a little wild. At our best, we make brands which are undeniably wonderful. Built on the kind of creative bravery that makes people, and the press, a little uncomfortable.
Each of these brands is a statement.
A radical exploration of what a brand can become. Even when it was unpopular, Wolff Olins never stopped challenging. Even when times are tough, our inventive spirit remains.
1968: The Beatles’ Apple Records
Briefs don’t come better than this. We created the identity for The Beatles’ new record label, including the now-iconic apple logo still associated with the band today.
The result was a brand that sat somewhere between music, art and cultural moments. Weirder, riskier, and all the better for it.
1971: Bovis
A turning point – one of the first times a corporate identity was treated as more than a visual wrapper. We gave Bovis not just a logo, but a point of view.
This was branding as strategy, a radical shift in what design could do for business. It gave brands meaning far beyond the corporate logo, and redefined how companies show up in the world.
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1989: First Direct
Banking, done bold. At a time when the sector was greyscale and faceless, we helped launch a phone-based bank with clarity, personality and bite. It didn’t feel like a bank. And that was the point.
It signalled the arrival of customer experience as brand, a radical idea at the time that reshaped the financial sector for good.
1994: Orange
Arguably one of the most radical consumer brands ever created. We took a sector dominated by technology jargon and gave it optimism, simplicity and humanity.
The identity was minimal to the extreme, an orange square. But the impact was immediate. Orange changed the branding landscape, and what customers expected from it.
2007: London 2012
People hated it. Then they loved it. Designed to disrupt, the jagged, unapologetic identity for the Olympics turned branding into a national conversation.
It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t passive. It was bold, spirited and totally unforgettable, just like the urban energy of the city. Which is what it needed to be to reflect an Olympics like never before.
2009: AOL
We gave AOL a brand that could never sit still. A dynamic system based on a shifting canvas, years before anyone was talking about “living brands” or AI-
generated logos. It wasn’t designed for consistency, it was designed for fluidity.
2024: Benefit
Fast-forward to now. For Benefit, we reimagined what beauty branding can look like today – less perfect, more playful. In a world where everything feels polished and overproduced, we leaned into humour, looseness, and joy. It doesn’t blend in, and doesn’t want to, just like Benefit’s customers.
In a cautious market clients play safe. Compressed timelines, lower appetite for risk. You can feel how that starts to chip away at boldness. At ambition.
But this is when you need vision the most.
To put emotion back at the heart of ideas, and craft back at the centre of execution. To move us beyond decks and into culture. To lean into AI and innovation, not as a gimmick, but as a way to move faster and freer. To bring clients with us, and build brands people embrace, not just recognise.
Wolff Olins didn’t build its reputation by fitting in. We built it by refusing to. That spirit, scrappy, inventive, relentless, is what got us here. And it’s what will take us forward.
Because the truth is, design doesn’t change anything unless it’s brave. And brave doesn’t happen by accident.
Emma Barratt is global executive creative director at Wolff Olins.