Our work

How do you build a brand for young people? With young people!

Culture, Leisure & TourismDesign, Identity & Strategy

What we did

Branding and naming exercise
Visual identity
Transition communication from BILL to UiTX
Compact style guide and brand book
Setting up TikTok and Instagram

Target audience

16- to 26-year-olds, ranging from the interested spectator to those who avoid culture

UiTX website →

Challenge

Expansion of the "Uit" label

Publiq grew out of the youth organization CJP and CultuurNet Vlaanderen. Reaching young people was part of its mission from day one. Yet in the beginning, Publiq used the separate name BILL. That felt unnatural. Young people belonged under the wing of “Uit.” Ideally, with a visual identity that clearly shows the connection to the parent brand. How do you create an identity that resonates with young people without overshadowing the parent brand, “Uit”?

Result

UiTX: a good balance between uniqueness and recognizability

Making a brand appeal to young people means, above all: don’t assume you’re a young person yourself, ask them directly. The 16- to 26-year-old demographic is very diverse in terms of style. Reaching them with a single message? Not easy! We tested proposals for naming, visual identity, and storytelling with a diverse group. With “X bij de Uit,” we checked all the boxes: young, concise, universal, and closely aligned with the parent brand.

A unique communication style

UiTX is a contemporary brand and is clearly meant to project a different image than the main brand. The young team opted for a distinctive color palette and a sharper, more unique tone of voice. The result is a daily success on Instagram and TikTok.

The target audience as designer

The process consisted of four phases: analysis, concept, creation, and development and implementation.

We developed the naming strategy through a longlist-shortlist-brainstorming process and evaluated each proposal against strict criteria: short, recognizable, “youthful,” not patronizing, an available domain name, and no confusion with existing brands.

Instead of deciding on our own, we presented the two remaining candidates, “BreekUiT” and “UiT X,” to young people themselves via a survey, and incorporated the results into the final name and design selection. In this way, we made the target audience co-designers of their own brand.

Takeaway

Let young people have a say in the decision-making process

That resulted in a more credible name and design than simply taking a shot in the dark from an agency. A sub-brand can have its own “identity,” as long as you maintain a tangible connection to the parent brand. That balance, not creativity for its own sake, was the real challenge here.