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

We’ve been working with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on a campaign for their newly ...
12/10/2026

We’ve been working with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on a campaign for their newly reopened Palm Houses – an iconic feature of the garden which offers an oasis in the city, filled with ferns, palms, and breathtaking glass-domed roofs.

Here you can see rare and threatened species like the Norfolk Island tree fern (which can reach up to 20 metres high in the wild), the hairy fronds of the Mexican tree fern and around 1,000 ladybirds that have been introduced to help protect the plants from other insects.

Our campaign uses simple, single words and triptychs that wind their way around new photography of the Palm Houses and happily lean in to the benefits of surrounding yourself with nature for an afternoon.

If you’re local, you can book your visit at the link in our bio

Credits:
Copywriting and design: Johnson Banks
Michael Johnson Lettie Suen George Stockley-Gray Katherine Heaton
Reopening video: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Light up video: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh / SYKD Media
Campaign photography: David Barbour

We’re looking for a Senior Account Manager for a maternity cover from early/mid December. Could you help? Or do you know...
07/10/2026

We’re looking for a Senior Account Manager for a maternity cover from early/mid December. Could you help? Or do you know someone who might be interested?

Location: Clapham Common, London (On-site at least 3 days a week)
Salary: £45 - £55k depending on experience
Contract: Fixed-term maternity cover, 12 months, full-time
Reporting to: Creative Director
Application deadline: 23:59 on 13 October 2026

In a nutshell: You’ll be the main link between our clients and our creative team, managing relationships, projects, budgets and deadlines across a range of branding and design work for a fantastic array of not-for-profit, cultural, philanthropic and & higher-education clients. You’ll be stepping into an established role, so we’re looking for someone experienced, organised and confident enough to take ownership quickly and keep things running smoothly.

Get your skates on if interested, applications close next week. Link to info in bio

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Typographic Circle asked designers and past speakers to design a ‘5’ poster. Th...
03/10/2026

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Typographic Circle asked designers and past speakers to design a ‘5’ poster.

The only stipulations being a fixed ‘portrait’ format, and the inclusion of a black circle to link back to their identity (hence spelling out ‘50’).

Johnson Banks Creative Director Michael Johnson’s solution uses 50 different fives contained in some of the most notable typeface releases of the last century, year by year.

Here’s a few snaps of the poster, a quick stop frame of all the fives and a quick snap of the exhibition.

Posters are for sale at the link in bio (and are very reasonably priced)

Thanks for the invite from the The Typographic Circle much help with type research from Monotype Phil Garnham and general help getting this over the line from
George Stockley-Gray Lettie Suen and .sives

For the completists out there, here’s a full list of the typfaces featured

1976 Frutiger
1977 Italia
1978 ITC Galliard
1979 VAG Rounded
1980 ITC Fenice
1981 ITC Berkeley Oldstyle Pro
1982 Lucida
1983 Helvetica Neue
1984 ITC Veljovic
1985 OCR-B New
1986 Lucida Sans
1987 Charter
1988 Rotis
1989 Adobe Garamond
1990 Minion
1991 FF Meta
1992 FF Scala Sans
1993 Bauhaus 93
1994 Comic Sans
1995 FF DIN
1996 Georgia
1997 Big Caslon
1998 Zapfino
1999 Helvetica Neue World
2000 Gotham
2001 Linotype Gianotten
2002 Avenir Next
2003 Neo Tech Pro
2004 Soho
2005 Proxima Nova
2006 Corbel
2007 Arno Pro
2008 Meta Serif
2009 Adelle
2010 Pluto
2011 Roboto
2012 Source Sans
2013 Trend
2014 FF Real
2015 Gill Sans Nova
2016 Maison Neue
2017 IBM Plex
2018 TT Commons
2019 Macklin
2020 Futura Now
2021 Walbaum 60pt
2022 Placard Next
2023 Aptos
2024 Neue Plak Variable
2025 Helvetica Now Next

There was some nice news this week that our recent work with WWF UK won prizes in the not-for-profit and copyright categ...
26/09/2026

There was some nice news this week that our recent work with WWF UK won prizes in the not-for-profit and copyright categories at the Brand Impact Awards - and then went on to scoop one of the biggest prizes of the evening, the Social Impact Award.

The campaign marks emerging territory for WWF-UK, opening up direct conversations with high-value audiences about its work to tackle tropical deforestation, which is now one of the charity’s top strategic priorities.

Our project challenge was that WWF’s public image is tied to orangutans, elephants and pandas – the animals that call these rainforests home. We needed a fresh way to connect those species to their habitat, highlight the vital role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in stewarding these landscapes, and unpack the global supply chains driving rainforest loss week by week.

We flipped the conventional narrative entirely, building the campaign around a spare, almost poetic opening line: “where there’s a tree...”

Rather than leaning on the doom-laden messaging typical of deforestation campaigns, we led with everything a tree, and by extension a forest, provides a home to. The shift in tone has reframed the conversation, with a flexible structure that can become punchier when called for.

Here’s how one of the judges described the project: an “infinite storytelling device” that could “express the complexities of ecological challenges and relationships in a pithy, meaningful way.” “The versatility of the structure kept surprising me,” they said, “and the lines deftly brought home the realities of deforestation with wit and empathy.”

Links in bio to the awards results and our case study

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

Address

Crescent Works, Crescent Lane
London
SW49RW

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

Telephone

+442075876400

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