Crossings

Peaks and Plains
Branding for a flagship development in the heart of Macclesfield
Naming, branding, design, copywriting

Peaks & Plains Housing Trust is an established builder and manager of homes and communities in East Cheshire and The High Peak. They wanted to expand their remit to new offers and audiences, and with this in mind established a new development arm called Chalk – homesbychalk.com.

The work of both organisations is characterised by local knowledge; a sensitive approach to development’ and the goal of profit for purpose. Crossings, a development of apartments housed in a Georgian Mill, is Chalk’s flagship development, and aims – along with future developments – to be a catalyst to re-energise the Sunderland Street area of Macclesfield.

We were asked to come up with the name and develop the messaging and brand for the development. We undertook a programme of research, spoke to local businesses and key stakeholders and devised a set of key characteristics, messages and ultimately the name and brand for Crossings.

The brand is used on marketing collateral and, in the first instance, a hoarding to run the length and breadth of the site.

Aimed primarily at young creatives and professional re-locators looking to live near in the heart of creative Macclesfield, but also within striking distance of the urban centre of Manchester, the brand needed to position the development alongside similar offers in the city centre’s Northern Quarter and Ancoats districts.

Given its prominent position in the town centre, visible from a major thoroughfare; railway line and to passing pedestrians, we wanted the hoardings to really shout out, hence the palette of bright acidic colours, The large poster-sale uppercase letters are a nod to the type advertisements and bill posters found on post-industrial mills. Building the brand around type and messaging was also a way to get around the absence of development photography – the brand was launched as the building plans were still being signed off.

In order to tailor messaging to different audiences; apartment sizes; and a mix of shared and private ownership, we adopted a modular design where the messaging and layout were made up of a series of ‘bricks’, which can be tesselated together in combinations that work for each output.

Creative Concern also developed the brands for Chalk and Sunderland Street.

To help us with our ambitious plans for the regeneration of Macclesfield town centre we turned to Creative Concern to help with placemaking and development branding. We are more than happy with the results, but more than that, we truly appreciate their genuine commitment to the Trust’s purpose and values.

Aileen O'Riordan, Digital Comms Lead, Peaks & Plains
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