Johnson Banks

Johnson Banks johnson banks is a brand consultancy based in London, with clients all over the world

We’re working with IWM Imperial War Museums on a wide-ranging project that will go live in 2027 across all their sites.I...
31/07/2026

We’re working with IWM Imperial War Museums on a wide-ranging project that will go live in 2027 across all their sites.

In the interim, they’ve asked us to help with the branding and communications on a few lead items. Here’s the first: the Childhood In War exhibition that opens 31 July at their Lambeth site in London.

It’s a free, interactive exhibition exploring how children have experienced and adapted to war and conflict from 1914 to the present day, and features recreations of an evacuee train carriage, a Cold War-era kitchen, among many other rooms and displays.

We drew on ‘green plastic soldiers’ for inspiration, while creating a new cast of characters that are both familiar, and a bit jarring, all at the same time.

The exhibition is free and open until 28 February 2027

Design: Johnson Banks
Design team: Jonathan Lennon George Stockley-Gray Katherine Heaton Michael Johnson
3d design: Double Up Studio
Animation: Johnson Banks
Exhibition design: Nissen Richards Studio

30/07/2026

We’ve received lots of great feedback on our ‘where there’s a tree…’ project - here’s a short video we made to explain what it’s all about. Sound on!

The World Wildlife Fund in the UK had retooled its strategy to make the global threat to the tropical rainforests their ...
27/07/2026

The World Wildlife Fund in the UK had retooled its strategy to make the global threat to the tropical rainforests their number one priority. They wanted to really engage with trusts and philanthropists about funding their work across deforestation and supply chains.

But shifting perceptions isn’t that easy, especially for the WWF – inevitably associated with the orangutans, elephants and pandas who live in these rainforests. Not the forests themselves.

We had to make a clearer link between species, their habitat, and show why the tropical rainforests are critical.

Eventually we found a poetic way to this, leading with just four words: ‘where there’s a tree…’
By leading with all the things that a tree (and hence a forest) is home to, we could shift the conversation and – every once in a while – show quite what happens when there’s no tree.

It’s proving to be an incredibly successful approach, helping WWF talk in a new way to new audiences, and helping to raise millions.

Link in bio

Team: words Michael Johnson and nickasbury design George Stockley-Gray Dan Keeffe Katherine Heaton

We were approached five years ago to name and brand a North London museum where N**i generals had been housed during WWI...
22/07/2026

We were approached five years ago to name and brand a North London museum where N**i generals had been housed during WWII.
Unbeknownst to them, Jewish-German emigrés were eavesdropping in the basement – they became known as ‘the secret listeners’. In the decade before the war, the house belonged to parliamentarian and socialite Philip Sassoon, who held endless parties there.
We reflected the house’s double life with a tweak to their name – Trent Park: House of Secrets. Then the visual brand takes one of Sassoon’s hand-painted ‘S’ monograms (that feature on the walls) and reconstructed it – out of barbed wire.
Trent Park has just opened, to much acclaim. Here’s a glimpse of our scheme: much more coming soon. Trent Park House of Secrets

Detail from ‘Shipbuilding on the Clyde’ by Stanley Spencer (1941-43) spotted at the Imperial War Museums London today
02/07/2026

Detail from ‘Shipbuilding on the Clyde’ by Stanley Spencer (1941-43) spotted at the Imperial War Museums London today

For our RIBA rebrand, the new logo is the core of the work – but it’s as much the design system that we have built aroun...
26/06/2026

For our RIBA rebrand, the new logo is the core of the work – but it’s as much the design system that we have built around it that will help the organisation bring dozens of departments, initiatives, products and awards all under one cohesive scheme.

That includes its famous journal RIBAJ and its Welsh division, RSAW. Another key bit of graphic ‘glue’ is an entire alphabet of drop caps that we’ve developed that follow brand style, and not forgetting their famous crest that has been simplified, retained and acts as a subtle sign-off to everything.

See more at the link in our bio

Design team
Michael Johnson
Katherine Heatonwestshaw
Lara Juriansz
Beth Johnson
Jonathan Lennon
design
Strategy and narrative
Michael Johnson
Katherine Heaton

Jill Hogan

Nice evening spent yesterday at the launch of a show of innovations and process and product at the STORE Projects show ...
20/06/2026

Nice evening spent yesterday at the launch of a show of innovations and process and product at the STORE Projects show at Coal Drops Yard - only on for a week so get a move on

Architect Philip Johnson once said ‘all architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that cont...
19/06/2026

Architect Philip Johnson once said ‘all architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space’ – and RIBA’s new logo is inspired as much by the spaces between the letters as the letters themselves.

See the link in our bio for the full case study

Design team
Michael Johnson
Katherine Heatonwestshaw
Lara Juriansz
Beth Johnson
Jonathan Lennon
design

Strategy and narrative
Michael Johnson
Katherine Heaton

Jill Hogan

16/06/2026

We took the first call on a potential project for the Royal Institute of British Architects – more commonly known as RIBA – at the end of 2018.

And now, after one of the longest-ever gestations of a branding project (well, for us at least), we can finally reveal our wholesale rebrand of the world’s oldest and second largest architectural organisation.

Here’s a short overview film, there’s lots to come and please follow the link in our bio for the full case study.

Thanks to four separate RIBA presidents past and present for their input, the internal RIBA team then and now for hanging in there and everyone at JB towers – going back many years – for all their ideas and input

Design team

westshaw



design

Strategy and narrative



This week’s is suitably football themed - one of a series of posters designed for the British Council nearly thirty ye...
11/06/2026

This week’s is suitably football themed - one of a series of posters designed for the British Council nearly thirty years ago.

The posters were all about Britain changing and used split screen imagery - in this case winner Geoff Hurst MBE twinned with England’s breakthrough 90s striker, Michael Owen…

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