Automated Architecture are a construction technology company founded on a simple belief: high-quality housing should be easy to build. Better for people. Better for the planet.
Our goal was to elevate AUAR from experimental architecture lab to serious industry contender. Their approach and model were already groundbreaking; we needed to help them communicate it with clarity and confidence to resonate with home builders from Belgium to the United States.
The identity draws on AUAR’s voxel-based software, informing the construction of the ‘a’ symbol and a flexible system of grid lines and connection points. The use of a single-weight typeface adds a deliberate symmetry with their focus on a single material. AUAR is now positioned not just as builders of homes, but as pioneers shaping the future of construction on a global scale.
AUAR secured £5.1M investment in 2025.
Completed at
Ascend Studio
Services
Identity, Website, Motion
Website
auar.io
Credits
Creative Director: Paul Croxton
Senior Designer: Harry Stewardson
Team Photography: © Hermione Hodgson
Product Photography: © Handover
3D Models: XO3D
Year
2024
Sixes turns a love of cricket and great hospitality into a full-swing social experience, where anyone can step up to the crease.
The identity is crafted around what sits at the heart of cricket: the feeling of belonging to a team and a culture. And because every team needs its colours, the cricket stripe became the focus of the visual system – showing up in various physical and digital spaces of the Sixes brand.
A defining feature of Sixes is that each venue has its own unique atmosphere, from the original venue in Fulham that oozes the cosy buzz of a traditional cricket clubhouse, to the larger and grander flagship venues of Fitzrovia and London Bridge. To reflect this, we gave each venue its own set of team stripes that are used on the venue pages of the website, across staff uniforms, and in venue-specific social posts. A simple way to give each location its own identity within the wider brand.
Completed at
Ascend Studio
Services
Strategy, Identity, Website
Website
sixescricket.com
Credits
Creative Director: Paul Croxton
Senior Designer: Harry Stewardson
Motion: Jack McKeon
Copywriting: Ali Owen & Josh Baker
Photography: Yi Lin Eng
Year
2025
Coming Soon
Compass Lexecon are a global economics consultancy providing legal, strategic, and public policy expertise to law firms, corporations, and governments.
We worked with them to design a new website that projected their broad capabilities through easy access to a comprehensive source of cases and insights, delivered evidence of credibility through the quality of their people, and showcased their global reach across 4 continents.
The approach to the design leans into the ‘full-circle of knowledge’ that Compass Lexecon describe themselves as, and which forms their existing logo. Previously using lots of sharp corners and squares, the circular form is incorporated throughout to tie the brand and website together and ultimately modernise the UI.
The content structure is focused on intuitive browsing, incorporating a rich mega menu, accessible related content, site-wide search functionality and detailed location information to enhance content discovery and provide recommendations tailored to user interests.
Completed at
Ascend Studio
Services
Website
Website
compasslexecon.com
Credits
Creative Director: Paul Croxton
Senior Designer: Harry Stewardson
Development: Hallmark
Motion: Jack McKeon
Year
2024
Venner Shipley are one of the UK’s leading intellectual property firms, working with businesses, universities, and individual inventors to protect their ideas and help progress technological and scientific innovation.
Our role was to help redefine their position from pure IP to a more diverse service and sector offering, as a result of multiple acquisitions. We created an identity that is guided by the notion of perspective, using square planes at different angles and viewpoints to form the symbol and the wider visual language.
Venner Shipley have continued to expand post-rebrand, acquiring two more firms and opening two more offices.
Completed at
Ascend Studio
Services
Identity, Motion
Credits
Creative Director: Paul Croxton
Senior Designer: Harry Stewardson
Year
2023
Story Ninety-Four are a film production company creating diverse video content with a focus on strong storytelling. They approached us having outgrown their original branding and looking to present themselves as a more established, all-round production company.
The brand direction emerged after joining them on a production. Seeing their complex, multi-stage workflow inspired an identity built from individual elements that come together to create something unique and compelling.
The symbol was built by constructing angular shapes within the 9 and 4, taking cues from the sharp lines of camera framing. As the forms developed, the combination began to also suggest the shape of a film camera, which clicked it all together and acted as a subtle nod to the origins of the industry.
Services
Identity
Completed at:
SEA
Credits
Creative Director: Bryan Edmondson
Designer: Harry Stewardson
Year
2020
Ship To Shore are a bespoke boat building company based in the historic Boathouse 4, HM Naval Base in Portsmouth. Passionate about the endangered craft of traditional wooden boat building, they specialise in repurposing old vessels and giving them new life.
We worked closely with founder Peter Collins to create an identity that could stand confidently within a niche industry defined by long-established makers. The challenge was to carve out space in this heritage-led category while signalling a modern, forward-thinking approach rooted in care for both craft and planet.
The identity combines the two S’s of Ship To Shore into a fluid, wave-like symbol, representing the connection between land and sea, past and future. The mark reflects their philosophy of restoration, renewal, and protection, supported by simple, deliberate typography that reinforces their one-of-one, bespoke approach to boat building.
Completed at
Ascend Studio
Services
Identity & Website
Website
shiptoshoredesigns.co.uk
Credits
Creative Director: Paul Croxton
Senior Designer: Harry Stewardson
Photography: © Peter Collins
Year
2023
A self-initiated studio project that explores the Railfreight identity, introduced on UK rail networks in the late 1980s. The redesign, by Roundel, broke away from the tired image of British Rail’s freight services by introducing a more graphic and coded visual system, with strong colours and symbols used to divide the operation into different sectors.
The outcome was an exhibition at D&AD, supported by a printed catalogue that documented the extent of the identity and its background. The project was produced with support from various industry sponsors, with the aim of bringing attention back to a piece of British design history that hadn’t been widely seen for decades but still feels relevant today.
Services
Exhibition Design
Completed at:
SEA
Credits
Railfreight Identity: Roundel
Creative Director: Bryan Edmondson
Senior Designer: Mike Davey
Designer: Harry Stewardson
Year
2018
Kinetic Flags is a self-initiated project that began during lockdown as a personal challenge to memorise national flags. While searching for good resources, most of what I found online felt poorly designed or overly gimmicky, often focused on quizzes or heavy visual effects. With the time available, I decided to create my own resource and use it as a way to develop my motion skills.
I created the name Kinetic Flags along with a simple logo and visual direction, then began animating. I started with flags that felt visually strong or offered interesting opportunities for movement, using animation to reveal how each design is constructed.
The project developed into a repeatable post format combining animation, the flag itself, and supporting information, allowing each piece to work as both a motion study and a reference. It’s still ongoing, with potential to expand into a larger archive or website, with the aim of building a resource that looks at flags as pieces of design, using motion to make their structure and meaning clearer.
Completed at
Self-initiated
Year
2020
A collection of used and unused work.
