‘People Make Glasgow’ creators aiming to help cut homelessness and boost sustainability in the city

The award-winning creative studio behind the iconic ‘People Make Glasgow’ brand is now putting its skills towards tackling two of the biggest issues facing the city – homelessness and sustainability.
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Tangent has been recruited by Sustainable Glasgow, a partnership formed by leading organisations from the commercial, academic and charity sectors, alongside local government, to create a brand that showcases Glasgow’s ambitions to become the UK’s first carbon neutral city by 2030.

Andrew and David helped create ‘People Make Glasgow’.Andrew and David helped create ‘People Make Glasgow’.
Andrew and David helped create ‘People Make Glasgow’.

Meanwhile, the firm is working with the Alliance to End Homelessness in its bid to eradicate rough sleeping in Glasgow by 2030. Its newly created brand identity demonstrates the hidden elements of homelessness and how the everyday pressures of life can slowly overwhelm people, while offering a positive message about how the city can come together to tackle the issue.

What is Tangent?

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Andrew Stevenson and David Whyte co-founded Tangent in 2005. Having set up the business straight out of the Glasgow College of Building & Printing, where they met, they never worked in other agencies, instead carving their own path.

The studio now boasts a team of eight designers, strategists and writers who specialise in brand strategy, identity, and activation.

‘It can bring people together’

David said: “People Make Glasgow showed the impact of good design – it can bring people together. At the time, everyone in the studio lived and worked in Glasgow, and we’re all very proud Glaswegians. That’s why it was so important to us that we did our city justice.

“There’s no formula for these things so putting your work out into the world can be nerve wracking, especially as the bar had been set so high by the previous campaign – Glasgow’s Miles Better. It was a huge relief when the reception was so positive.

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“Branding can be really influential in lots of ways, but we’re conscious that for many people it solely represents market forces and commercial interests. We don’t believe talented designers should clock in the hours purely for the pursuit of driving other people’s wealth. We’re more interested in the spaces where design still exists as a form of social communication, helping change attitudes and open people up to new ideas.”

Pandemic problems

At the start of the pandemic, around 80 per cent of Tangent’s business was under threat, but the studio recognised that, long-term, the pandemic was changing people’s attitudes about what mattered most to them and how we work together as a society.

Andrew added: “Despite the uncertainty, we resisted the temptation to change our offering as a knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic.

“We always think long-term, and our skills and experience are perfectly aligned with a post-pandemic world – Tangent delivers brands that bring people together, have wider societal impact and support those most in need. We’re small but our clients have the scale and reach to create behavioural change and have impact on a global scale.”

To find out more about Tangent, visit www.tangentgraphic.co.uk.

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