Fawley Estate Agents

Fawley is an estate agency identity in which the first letter is the For Sale board. The top arm of the F is the bracket that reaches out from the post, and the middle bar, set in coral, is the board hanging from it. It reads as a capital F first and an estate agent a moment later, which is the right order for a name people need to remember.

The board outside the house

Estate agents are sold by their boards. A board on a busy road keeps an agency's name in front of a whole street, and buyers often remember a house by whose board was outside it. Yet agency logos rarely use the board. Most fall back on a roof line or a key, and the roof in particular is shared with every builder, roofer and mortgage broker in town. We ruled the house outline out at the start.

A hanging sign is made of a post, an arm and a panel, which is very nearly the shape of an F already. We drew the stem as the post, extended the top arm into the bracket and hung the middle bar beneath it on two short hangers, as a coral panel. The rest of the name follows straight after, in the same condensed capitals, so the F does its job and then lets the name be read.

Routes we explored

Fawley went through more than thirty ideas before we built one, and three reached the shortlist. The first, which we built, was the F as a hanging sign. The second was a lowercase f whose hook carries the board. It had real charm on a large sign, but it was weaker at small sizes, where the board had too little room to read.

The third was a monogram of an F and a doorway. It was clever, but it drifted back towards the house shape we had already set aside. The capital F won because it carries both messages at once, Fawley and estate agent, and holds them at every size from a hoarding to a browser tab.

Condensed, like a board

The wordmark is set in Saira Condensed ExtraBold with a custom F. A condensed face suits the trade: property boards, window cards and listing headlines all need a lot of letters in a narrow space, and condensed capitals stay readable from across a road. ESTATE AGENTS runs underneath in Saira Condensed Bold with wide letter spacing, so the descriptor reads as the small print on a board rather than competing with the name.

Across the identity, headings use the same condensed capitals and body text drops to the regular width of Saira, which keeps long property descriptions easy to read.

Plum and coral

Agency colours tend to be navy, black or a corporate green, chosen to look safe. Plum is a deliberate step away from that. It is dark enough to carry white type on boards and signs, but it has warmth in it, which suits a business that is really about homes. Coral is the board. It is kept for the board in the logo, the hanging panels on the card, letterhead and envelope, and the calls to action, and it is almost never a flat background.

Coral is bright but too light to carry small white text, so small words on coral are set in plum and white appears on coral only at headline size. White is the paper and the bracket. On light grounds the logo runs in plum with the coral board, reversed it runs in white with the same coral board, and the one colour versions cover etched glass and window vinyl.

A card with a board hanging from it

The front is plum with the reversed logo centred. On the back, a plum post rises from the bottom edge and a bracket arm runs almost the full width of the card. Two short chains drop from it, and the coral board they hold carries one instruction, call to book a valuation, with the phone number set large. Sales, lettings and valuations run along the foot in spaced capitals. The back of the card is a small version of the sign the business would put up outside a house.

Appraisals on headed paper

A market appraisal letter is often the first thing a seller keeps from an agent, so it carries the brand without fuss. A plum rule runs across the very top of the page with a small coral board hanging from it near the right edge. The logo and number sit below, then a heading in condensed capitals and a four part summary: the property, the asking range, comparable sales and the marketing plan. The envelope is plum, with a coral arm and board in the top right corner.

Posts that work like a window card

The posts borrow from the agency window. A just listed post hangs a coral board from a plum bracket over a photograph of the street. A plain plum post asks what your home is worth and points to a market appraisal. A white post lists what buyers notice first, numbered in coral. None of the posts shows a price or a sold count, only the property and the offer to value, so they stay accurate however long they sit on the grid.

A homepage with the board in the hero

The homepage starts with the sign. A white bracket arm runs in from the left edge of a plum hero, over the headline and across a photograph of a bright living room, and a coral board hangs from it holding a postcode box for a valuation. The headline beside it says every move starts with a board outside.

Below the hero sits the search bar buyers expect, with buy and rent tabs, location, bedrooms and property type. New listings follow as three photographs, each with a small coral board hanging from a plum rail. The page then splits into two halves, selling on plum and letting on a pale blush, each with four plain promises, before three questions sellers ask first and a closing board with the phone number.

On the tee

Agents spend their days at viewings in their own clothes, so the tee is for open days, board fitting and the office. The reversed lockup is printed in white with the coral board on a plum tee. The board is the only colour on the shirt, which keeps it smart enough for an agency.