Design recruitment agency Craft has revealed a new brand identity that leans firmly into what it does best: cultivating creative careers and teams for the long term, rather than simply filling vacancies.
Launched after more than a decade in business, the refreshed identity arrives at a pivotal moment for the Manchester-headquartered company. Craft now works with many of the studios and brands it once admired from afar, placing talent at the likes of Koto, Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Pearlfisher, Elmwood and in-house at the New York Times, Channel 4, Deloitte and Asahi.
That massive reach has shifted the type of conversation the agency is having. As senior placements grow – around 30% of its work now focuses on leadership roles – the team realised its playful, Elmwood-designed identity from ten years ago was struggling to keep pace. The original concept, built around millions of logo variations to reflect the uniqueness of talent, had served them well, but the tone no longer matched the weight of the work.
“We’ve been going for 12 years, and our brand had started to feel a bit juvenile and playful to be perhaps as serious as the services that we offer, so it was time to grow up,” says Daisy Crowder, the agency’s brand and marketing director.
That doesn’t mean abandoning the energy that made Craft stand out in the first place. The new brand, created with a global roster of collaborators, is designed to feel grown-up without drifting into generic recruitment territory. The idea that holds everything together is “cultivation”, described by founder Dan Crowder as “the intentional process of turning potential into progress”.
“Real growth isn’t passive. It’s powerful. Through care, consideration, and cultivation, we help creatives, teams, and organisations flourish,” Dan says. The language is deliberately agricultural, evoking patience and care, and reflecting how Craft sees its role in the industry, not just today but ten years from now.
Daisy explains: “Nature is that inherent talent that people in the design industry have – their ambition, their potential that’s untapped. Nurture is our guidance, support and energy to move people and businesses forward.”
Visually, that metaphor shows up in a new floral system at the heart of the identity. A bespoke symbol, formed from the four Cs – Craft Cultivates Creative Community – serves as the anchor.
Around it, a series of photographs by Valencia-based photographer Paula Codoner explores flowers as stand-ins for qualities the agency seeks when building teams: resilience, independence, close bonds, joy, and diversity.
“We actually gave a flora brief,” Daisy says. “Flowers have this wonderful symbolism behind them, so we briefed in flower types that symbolise resilience, independence, close bonds, joy and diversity – all these wonderful words that relate to design careers.”
Paula describes the collaboration as a natural fit. “Their idea of cultivation resonated deeply with how I approach photography: careful, intentional, and open to the unexpected. My role was to create a visual world that reflects a slow-growing ecosystem, where creativity is not rushed, but allowed to flourish under the right conditions.”
Rather than leave the imagery in a purely photographic space, Craft and its partners pushed things further through digital treatments and generative image-making. Led by Los Angeles studio Sundry, founded by former Koto creative Dave Rax, the flowers are warped, layered and mapped onto meshes to create what the team calls “textural petals”.
Motion principles echo the same idea, with elements unfurling, swaying and oscillating to suggest living systems rather than static assets. “It’s a movement that’s very different to the ‘now hiring’ most people shout at you with,” Daisy says.
The typography and core palette also mark a conscious move away from what she describes as the “shouty sans world” of job boards and black-and-white corporate recruitment brands.
“We’re moving into small, crafted typography because there’s a lot of shouty sans world when people are hiring,” she explains. “We exist where the best design in the world exists, so we need to move the needle again, resonate with creative leaders globally and be a clear articulation of Craft’s value and passion.”
In case it wasn’t already clear, Craft’s audience was at the heart of this project throughout. The agency speaks daily with creative directors, strategy leads, and senior client services folk, all of whom live and breathe visual language. They don’t, as Daisy points out, need another stock illustration of “three people around a meeting table”.
The rebrand also mirrors Craft’s operating model. The identity itself was “crafted around the world”, bringing together Sundry in Los Angeles, Paula in Valencia, digital design from Good City in Copenhagen and Paris, and verbal identity from Berlin-based writer Louie Zeegen. It literally proves Craft’s ability to connect the right creative partners with the right opportunities across geographies and disciplines.
Beyond the visuals, the idea of cultivation underpins the agency’s wider activity. Events, a podcast on creative leadership, and a steady drumbeat of content are all geared towards supporting the industry for the long haul.
Daisy says: “It’s because we genuinely want the design industry to do better in 10 years. That actually matters to us. We’re not in it for a quick buck. We’ve been doing this for 12 years now, and we want longevity.”
Dan adds: “The Craft brand isn’t just our visual or verbal identity – it reflects our culture too. It captures who we are and reflects where we’re heading: nurturing creative talent, shaping teams, and creating the right conditions for growth.”
For an agency that lives between studios and talent, it’s an identity that looks beyond the short term and focuses on what can grow, as all good recruitment should.
