Babcock International

Creativity as a catalyst for change
At Devonport Dockyard – one of the UK’s most complex and historic working environments – Babcock International Group set out to explore how creativity could positively influence everyday experience at work.

  • Campaign messaging
    Creative strategy
    Environmental graphics
    Mural design and installation
    Place-based communication

Creativity for Change is a place-wide programme using design, artwork, murals and language to engage people, strengthen identity and raise aspirations across the dockyard. Our role was to help bring that ambition to life — embedding creativity directly into the fabric of the working environment.

Design that works where people work
The visual language drew inspiration from dazzle camouflage — a bold, graphic approach originally used on naval ships to disrupt perception through pattern and contrast. Reinterpreted through a contemporary lens, the aesthetic was developed using Babcock’s colour palette and a suite of bespoke illustrations created with Neasden Control Centre, resulting in a highly adaptable graphic style.

To support consistency without prescription, we created the Babcock Creative Catalogue — a practical design bible that allowed managers and teams across the dockyard to select the level and style of creative intervention most appropriate to their space. Options ranged from typographic statements and graphic language to illustrative or more restrained, corporate-led approaches.

This modular system meant creativity could be applied confidently across walls, circulation routes, windows and shared spaces — responding to scale, architecture and movement while remaining legible, motivating and human.

Every piece was designed to be encountered in motion — glimpsed, revisited, absorbed over time.

Language with intent
Words played a central role in the programme. Messaging was deliberately direct, optimistic and grounded — designed to resonate with the workforce rather than talk over them. The aim was to create moments of reflection, pride and encouragement within spaces not typically associated with inspiration. All language was developed in alignment with Babcock’s existing brand guidelines, ensuring consistency with the organisation’s wider voice while allowing space for warmth, clarity and human expression at a local level. This balance between strength and sensitivity helped the work feel authentic to the dockyard, rather than imposed upon it.

Creativity, embedded
What makes this project distinctive is its scale and intent. Creativity wasn’t treated as a one-off campaign, but as a long-term tool for cultural change – integrated across multiple environments and mediums.

The result is a body of work that demonstrates how graphic design can operate beyond branding: shaping atmosphere, influencing behaviour and contributing meaningfully to how people experience their place of work.