How do we show innovation within our established brand?

Establish what audiences already associate with the brand before deciding what an innovation identity needs to communicate. For Maersk's Innovation Center, The Frameworks conducted stakeholder interviews to understand perceptions of the brand and business. Maersk had a long-standing global reputation, but the Innovation Center had little to no exposure. Many target audiences still associated Maersk with marine transport and ship operations rather than its technology-enabled, digital supply chain capabilities. The Frameworks used customer and audience empathy research and user experience mapping to inform the strategy. The practical starting point is to identify the gap between an established reputation and less familiar capabilities, then define what the new identity must make visible. For Maersk, that meant communicating creativity and speed.

Build a distinctive expression from existing brand elements rather than treating innovation as a separate visual world. For Maersk's Innovation Center, The Frameworks explored how to elevate the experience within Maersk's existing brand guidelines. The concept, "blueprint for innovation", reflected the centre's role as an incubator for new ideas. Its illustration style drew on the sharp edges of the star and the block-like lettering in the Maersk logo, creating an identity connected to the parent brand. The Frameworks extended the approach into an interactive landing page, animating five innovation areas to communicate their concepts and support navigation. The practice to adopt is to look for distinctive ingredients in the established identity and develop them into an expression suited to the innovation offer.

Put current innovation work at the centre so the identity communicates capabilities through projects, case studies and examples. For Maersk's Innovation Center, The Frameworks made that material central to the digital experience, following customer and audience empathy research and user experience mapping. The aim was to show creativity and speed while giving audiences confidence in Maersk's proven record of bringing innovations to market. The innovation story addressed practical priorities: finding margins, creating better jobs, reducing waste and emissions, and improving efficiency across warehousing and logistics. Use current work to connect the new expression with the established business's capabilities. In Maersk's case, the approach brought its less familiar innovation activity into view alongside its long-standing logistics reputation.