The B Team's arrow became a compass: Nice and Serious softens Branson's non-profit

A global non-profit of business leaders (Arianna Huffington and Kathy Calvin among them) pushing sustainable business, needing an identity inclusive enough for collaboration while keeping the brand equity of its blue.

Compass-point logo with directional rules (right, up or down only), a modular system across website, reports and cards, mint-and-yellow palette layered over corporate blue, simplified icons for business jargon, and candid photography guidelines.

The identity rolled across the organisation's website, published reports and business cards; the report gives no reach figures.

The B Team, the business-leaders non-profit Richard Branson set up in 2012 to push sustainable business practices, had evolved into something more collaborative and democratic — but its branding hadn't. Strategist Fadi Dada of London studio Nice and Serious described the old identity as 'dry' and 'authoritative'; the brief was an identity that felt 'inclusive' and 'welcoming'.

The central move was one glyph: the logo's arrow — 'I point the way forward and you follow me', as creative director Peter Larkin put it — became a compass point. 'It shows how we're all aligned but that no one way is the right way.' The mark is modular, reusable across the website, published reports and business cards, with guidelines confining the compass point to right, up or down.

Colour was recalibrated rather than replaced: blue stayed as brand equity, refreshed with 'fresher, more positive tones' of mint and yellow that can be dialled down for content-heavy material like financial reports. Nice and Serious added a set of icons that 'sum up big and gnarly business jargon with simple and clear icons', plus photography guidelines pushing 'in-the-moment, candid shots you wouldn't expect from business leaders'.

The arrow-to-compass swap is a governance statement in one glyph: from 'I point, you follow' to aligned-but-plural directions.

Colour change was calibrated, not total: corporate blue survived as brand equity while mint and yellow added 'joy and optimism'.

One system flexes from hero posters to financial reports — rare discipline for a non-profit spanning many campaign topics.

Icons and candid photography translated business jargon and stiff leader portraits into something a wider coalition could actually use.

Rebranding a founder-led organisation means demoting the founder's arrow: changing a symbol's grammar — pointing at you becomes pointing with you — can carry a governance shift better than any copy.

As of the November 2019 reveal, the system was live across The B Team's website, reports and business cards. Design Week's report carried no audience or funding results.