Ragged Edge rebuilt cycle insurer Laka around 'mess with one of us, mess with all of us'

Following a successful seed round, Laka wanted an identity that could express collective cover for cyclists in the UK and Europe, ditch insurance's negative tropes, and stretch to future products for other collectives of people.

Build the brand straight from the model: customers club together to share the cost of claims that actually happen — 'mess with one of us, mess with all of us'.

Bold portraiture heroing the collective's diverse members, landscape-like patterns inspired by 'mud, sweat and tears from a ride', a palette of strong team colours and a positive tone of voice — finished mid-lockdown with socially distanced photoshoots and sign-offs over Zoom.

No quantitative results were reported; the rebrand's job was perception — making a community-based insurer look like the opposite of the category's negative image.

Laka, founded in 2017, runs insurance as a collective: customers pool together and share the cost of the claims that actually happen, rather than paying for the ones that might. When the company enlisted Ragged Edge after a successful seed round, the agency built the entire identity from that mechanic. 'When we club together, everybody stands to benefit. And that very simple idea is what this brand is built from,' said Max Ottignon, Ragged Edge's co-founder.

The brand deliberately flees insurance's visual clichés: bold portraiture heroes the diverse members of the collective, patterns are inspired by the 'mud, sweat and tears' of a ride, and a palette of strong team colours ties it together. The tone of voice turns the mutual model into a rallying cry for 'bike nerds and cycling newbies alike': 'mess with one of us, mess with all of us'.

Timing mattered. Work began before Covid-19, but the team was mid-process when lockdown hit, forcing socially distanced photoshoots and approvals over Zoom. The rebrand landed in June 2020, just as the UK government pledged an extra £250 million for cycle lanes and pandemic cycling boomed — with Ottignon noting the identity was also designed to let Laka expand into any product, for any collective of people.

The community claims model is Laka's actual differentiator, so the identity expresses it rather than decorating it.

Insurance brands trade in fear; a cycling collective built on shared passion gave Laka permission to look and sound positive.

The pandemic cycling boom and £250M of new cycle-lane investment meant the brand had to be ready for a wave of new riders.

The system was designed to stretch beyond bikes — to any product for any collective — protecting the brand as the company grows.

When your product model is the differentiator, don't illustrate it — make the model itself the brand's voice, colours and tagline.

The identity launched in June 2020 as Laka rode the pandemic cycling boom; Creative Review reported no hard numbers, framing the work as a perception play against insurance's negative image. Laka's later funding record — including a Series B in 2025 — is covered by its own entries elsewhere in the archive.