A CASE STUDY

The face of luxury is constantly changing and today's wealth looks very different to tomorrow's younger, more entrepreneurial, affluent consumer. For a number of years, Andrew Hudson Design has been making sure that the graphic design of all of Bentley's global marketing material is changing in tune with the luxury consumers of tomorrow, and reaffirming that Bentley is not just a luxury automotive brand, but a luxury brand.

Setting out to evolve a luxury brand's visual appeal in unison with a changing audience is no simple task. In fact, it is not one task at all, but a challenge to constantly update all material while still running a consistent tone, look and feel. Fortunately, a luxury brand like Bentley is always revising, reprinting and republishing, which has given Andrew a great platform to transform the brand to one more relevant to the new face of luxury consumers through multiple projects. From web and social content, motion graphics, and animated advertising, right through to literature and core brand material, there are too many projects to list here. Here are some of the bigger projects Andrew has handled for Bentley as part of a bigger shift towards a more modern audience.

Bentley literature.

All of Bentley's product and brand literature has had a complete redesign over the past four years. New formats, new finishing, two completely different grid designs for product vs brand and every finish you can possibly imagine: Foils, metallic overprinting, spot UV varnishes, matt varnishes, soft touch laminates, fold out pages, tracing layer pages, and even CMYK + 9 specials on the customer book paint swatch pages. These brochures and books have it all, but in a subtle way to appropriately represent the brand.

A Journey. 3 foils and a laser cut slipcase really spark the senses

Mini Brochure: soft touch laminate and with chrome foil

Digital advertising and social media.

It's not just print that has had a makeover, Andrew has redesigned all digital and social advertising to perfectly tie in with print advertising. He has had to stay at the forefront of new platforms, and was one of the first to utilise the new Facebook takeover microsite, called Canvas.

Press advertising and core brand graphic.

2015 saw the redesign of Bentley's press templates. In a move towards the behaviour of a luxury brand rather than a car brand, the design has taken a great step to becoming just full bleed imagery, while tackling the challenge of housing the required fuel consumption figures now imposed on automotive advertising.

The previous core graphic, the 'Matrix Grille', was also redesigned and renamed as the 'diamond pattern'.  In keeping with the ethos of Bentley itself, constantly refining their products, the new design took a more refined yet still recognisable look, typical of a modern luxury brand.

Film sting.

At Bentley, a huge amount of effort goes into attention to detail, and the countless hours of hand-crafting every Bentley is something that the automotive brand is very proud of. It's a big part of what separates Bentleys from other luxury vehicles. So in 2017, Andrew worked on a redesign of the Bentley film sting, inspired by the many men and women behind each car. The sting now features on every Bentley piece of film, whether it's a brand film with huge exposure, or an internal presentation.

Bentley Motorshow stands

Geneva Motorshow: Performance Lab

Geneva Motorshow: Connected Car