Gwent Police

Covering an area of 600 square miles, including local authority areas of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen as well as key routes between Wales and England, Gwent Police protect, reassure and work alongside the community to keep Gwent safe; the community encompasses residents, businesses and visitors. 

They also work with other forces within Wales and across the border, to be more efficient and make the best use of resources; this also includes other emergency services and public organisations.

Behind the scenes Gwent Police also have a wealth of experience and knowledge supporting their teams, offering legal, scientific and business support, as well as extensive training, health and wellbeing support for themselves and the public.

Gwent Police aim to give everyone confidence in their abilities to prevent and tackle crime.

Gwent Police were looking for an effective way to bring in a new procedure that would affect how officers in a variety of different roles, mainly front-line arresting officers and officers working in custody suites, did their day to day jobs.

For this change of procedure to be effective, received well and rolled out without any confusion, this project needed a strong brand, that could make all the assets produced for the newly named Recognise and Respond campaign, stand out from any other marketing Gwent Police might be doing at the same time.

What is their mission?

Working with GDAS CJ (Gwent Drug and Alcohol Service – Criminal Justice), who provide specialist interventions for individuals in the criminal justice system aged 18 years and over with a drug and/or alcohol problem, Gwent police aim to move individual offenders out of crime and into treatment.

What is their goal? 

This is with the aim of supporting the reduction of drug and alcohol-related offending levels in each of the five local service board areas, delivering cohesive and integrated interventions across Gwent. This ensures the causes of drug and/or alcohol-related offences and the risk of harm to individuals, families, peers and their communities are addressed and reduced. 

Why did they come to Tiny Wizard?

Due to the scale of this change, Gwent Police decided to undertake a full marketing campaign for Recognise and Respond, including building a campaign identity, developing an app and commissioning three animated explainer videos. These would ensure that all members of the police force are 100% aware of all the changes that will come into effect with the rollout of this new policy.

During the discovery stage, we spoke with Gwent Police about what they wanted out of this campaign, as well as where they were going to be sharing the assets and who with. 

It became clear that this procedure would have an affect on a large number of the Gwent force.  Our team made sure that during the discovery stage, we asked all of the right questions.

This helped the Wizards get a better understanding of how to start developing the Recognise and Respond brand, what language to use in the animation and a clear view of how the project would develop over time.

Like the scripting stage during an animation, the vision board stage during the rebranding process is all about getting under the clients’ skin and trying to find out what they love and what they hate. 

A campaign is so much more than just a marque* or logo! 

Our branding Wizard collated a variety of examples and ideas, ranging from poster designs to social posts, showing good examples of bold type that both grabs attention and pushes through a message. 

We also showed how using smaller colour palettes would work with any existing Gwent Police branding and still pack a punch whilst keeping things simple.

Through these examples, Gwent Police could start seeing how type can be creatively used  to create something bold and eye-catching.

Among these examples were fantastic brands such as:

• Campaign Against Living Miserably
• Race Against Dementia
• THINK!
• Oscar Kilo

*Did you know? A marque is an icon attached to the brand – This is often a simple shape or graphic that is instantly recognisable and associated with the brand.

Here is where the magic comes together! During the concept stage, we used Gwent Police’s feedback from the vision board to create concepts.

Five concepts to be precise!

Our branding Wizard was also inspired by the concept art that had been created for the animations; utilising the characters that had been designed to show how the different parts of the campaign would work together. 

To keep the decision-making as simple as possible for Gwent Police the colour palette has been kept the same throughout, they also got to see how the brand would work alongside the existing and instantly recognisable Gwent Police Crest.

* We had a clear idea of what the client wanted by this point but they wanted to see a hand drawn ‘organic’ logo, as they were inspired by the charity, Mind.  After creating it, shown as concept 2, we all agreed it didn’t suit the direction and campaign mission.    

When building the Recognise and Respond brand guidelines our branding Wizard was able to showcase how, what might look like a simple brand to the untrained eye, can be utilised in a way to create bold eye-catching campaign assets. All of which follow the brand guidelines perfectly. 

We showcased Recognise and Respond’s brilliant new campaign marque. It really is at the forefront of their identity and clearly represents the campaign’s aims and mission, moving forward and growing. 

It also ensures that the team at Gwent Police can make sure that the Recognise and Respond branding is upheld across all marketing channels and on any assets that might be created.

This is important so that the campaign can achieve optimum levels of audience engagement and help people retain more information.

The Script was the first chance the Wizards got to deep dive into the hows and whys behind Gwent Police’s new procedure. 

What kind of script was it?         

This involved understanding the different roles within the force, and how any changes brought in by Recognise and Respond would affect them, then we had to translate these changes into an engaging explainer animation.  

We also wanted to make sure that amongst the important information, there was a story packed full of emotion because, in the end, the aim of Recognise and Respond is to help people. 

How long was the script?

Both scripts came in at around 600 words and created a complete 360 view of how, Recognise and Respond, will work in real-life policing situations. It also explains to officers, what will happen to offenders after they leave custody. 

Did you know?

If your script is 300 words long, your animation will actually be 2 minutes 30 seconds, if you average 2 words per second.

What happened in this stage?   

During the Concept art stage, Gwent Police were able to see their vision start to come to life, paired with the script this is the ideal way to visualise key parts of the animation. 

For this project, it was paramount for the setting and characters to accurately represent Gwent Police and the areas they work in, whilst also making sure that the whole animation had a distinctive style that would work with the new Recognise and Respond brand. 

We developed a few different character profiles as well as showing how one of the key scenes would be visualised in full colour. 

Were there any issues in the process?

This gave Gwent Police a lot to think about. Something we really needed them to do, as our animators needed their expert information regarding specific details of the police officer’s uniforms, police cars etc, to make sure that the officers watching wouldn’t be distracted by a character wearing the wrong uniform.

What did the client like?     

Gwent police were blown away by the style that our animation Wizard had created, it was bold and would give Recognise and Respond a unique style that could be incorporated into the rest of the campaign.

After wowing Gwent Police at the concept stage, there were only a few minor changes to the storyboard, mostly relating to small details that only a room full of police officers would pick up on. Such as the style of a police officer’s hat and what a GDAS worker would wear. 

This is exactly what we want to hear, as we were just about to embark on the production stage of our journey, there is no turning back now! 

Gwent Police were thrilled with the practically perfect process that led to production, they engaged brilliantly throughout and by this stage everything was in place so that our animation Wizards could crack on and bring this brilliant animation to life. 

With so many layers to build and characters to design these two animations had a hefty animation time of 80 hours! 

Once you watch the final product you’ll begin to wonder how we got both animated in 80 hours, because our animation Wizard has packed this animation full of detail and warmth. There has been a brilliant use of texture and lighting to really built an effective atmosphere throughout both animations. 

With Gwent Police’s help, our Wizards have been able to accurately represent a number of different officers throughout the force, making sure that officers watching will be able to easily identify where they fit into the new changes.

Once the campaign guidelines had been created they were almost immediately used to help Gwent Police develop an app that would be a crucial portal for police officers throughout the force. Allowing them to access all the information they will need, about the new Recognise and Respond procedure. 

Our branding Wizards worked closely with the app developers to make sure that Gwent Police’s vision for the brand was followed through, and would look and feel like the perfect partner for the animated explainer videos. 

The Wizards then created another explainer video that will give officers a tour around the Recognise and Respond app, giving us another chance to work with the brilliant brand we helped bring to life. 

We wanted to make sure that the Recognise and Respond brand would be unforgettable, and after hearing the wonderful feedback from the team at Gwent Police we are almost certain we have achieved that. 

If you have a campaign that deserves the full attention of a studio full of Wizards get in touch today, and we’ll show you how we can make you the star of the show!