Barking Brains

Introduction

Barking Brains is a neuroscience outreach project founded by Dr Kathy Murphy, designed to make the science of animal behaviour accessible and engaging for trainers, behaviourists, and enthusiasts alike. With a growing community and ambitions to expand their digital presence, they needed a cohesive brand identity that could flex across multiple touchpoints from slide decks and business cards through to a full website. while remaining unmistakably theirs.

Problem statement

Science-led communities are often underserved by their visual identities defaulting to clinical, inaccessible aesthetics that fail to reflect the energy and passion of the people behind them. Barking Brains needed a brand identity that could bridge the credibility of neuroscience with the warmth and approachability of the animal behaviour and training community it serves. The challenge was to create something memorable and distinctive, without sacrificing the trust that an academic foundation demands.

Solution & key elements

The identity was built around a custom logomark that works on multiple levels — two mirrored letter B forms combining to form the shape of a brain. Conceptually precise and visually playful, it communicates the brand's core proposition at a glance. This kind of considered, dual-meaning mark is the hallmark of strong brand design: immediately legible, yet rewarding on closer inspection.

A flexible design system was developed around the logo — incorporating a bold, characterful colour palette and expressive pattern library that can be applied consistently across contexts without becoming rigid. This scalability is central to best practice brand identity work; the system was designed not just for today's collateral, but to grow with the organisation as its output and reach expand.

With the core identity established, the system was rolled out across a suite of branded touchpoints: PowerPoint templates built to maintain visual consistency in presentations, business cards that carry the brand with confidence, and a Webflow website in development — ensuring every audience interaction, digital or physical, feels considered and coherent.