The Challenge

While contracting for the General Medical Council I was asked to refresh and redesign internal communication design work. The internal communications team required new and innovative ideas and wanted their designs to be 'bold and bright' to reflect the attitudes of the GMC employees.

Design of a new 'bold and bright' news internal email for the GMC

When I was asked to refresh the GMC's internal email the internal communication team wished for a bold, bright contempory look and feel. It was important that the email was engaging enough for employees to want read the email in their spare time, on lunch breaks etc. Even though this email cannot be read via a mobile phone the email was designed to be responsive so that the email can be viewed on a variety of desktop screen sizes.

Designing the GMC's internal magazine for employees

Internal magazines and newsletters are important tools for keeping teams informed company-wide. This is especially true for larger organisations such as the General Medical Council where teams may be in silos. Team members rely on the GMC's internal magazine 'GMC People' to know what’s happening around the organisation.

While working closely with the internal communications team I designed a number of GMC People magazines. As these needed to be designed quickly and without the advantages of using high-end photography and illustrations we always made the best of what we had by using photography that had been taken by ourselves or by GMC employees on their mobile phones. We felt that the personal nature of our amature photography gave the stories the advantage of a true to life look and feel.  

When using stock images and illustrations I made the effort of tweaking and retouching them to make each one unique and reflective of each individual story. Sometimes I would even have a go at drawing my own illustrations.  This meant that every issue was eye-catching and full of personality which is needed to attract busy GMC employees.

These magazines were printed internally and also sent to employees as digital PDFs that sometimes contained hyperlinks to webpages and movies that were relevant to each story.

Design of GMC internal transformation programme posters

I was asked to design a set of four posters to be displayed internally around the GMC offices. These posters needed to use aspects of a professionally illustrated GMC Internal Tranformation Roadmap design (see below) and turned into a fresh set of four posters that focus in on four specific themes inspired by the roadmap.

I felt that the illustration style used in the roadmap is human, approachable and expressive therefore I decided to compliment this approach by using the illustrators own handwriting style for the poster headlines.

Roadmap designed by a professional illustrator commisioned by the GMC's Internal Communications team. This design influenced my above poster designs.

GMC Seasons Greeting Email design

This seasonal eshot I illustrated and animated as a gif for the GMC. I had direction from the marketing manager to keep the visual identity and illustrative approach similar to a recent internal poster and leaflet 'One GMC' campaign that GMC employees were familier with. 

This Seasons Greeting email was to be sent to the outside world including stakeholders and internally to GMC employees. The marketing manager felt that the General Medical Council's values that were being communicated internally through the 'One GMC campaign' to create a sense of belonging should also be communicated to the outside world.

The 'One GMC' poster designed by an external agency that was part of an internal communications campaign. This influenced my festive season Eshot design.

GMC LGBTQ+ support posters

The GMC understands that they have a responsibility to their employees to provide them with a workplace where they feel safe and comfortable.  I was asked to design and illustrate these posters of leading LGBTQ+ figures to raise awareness and show support on the run up to the LGBTQ+ Pride marches in London and Manchester. These posters were placed around GMC offices and published in an internal magazine for employees. I hope that designing these posters helped create a work environment where LGBTQ+ staff can be themselves and, because of that, thrive at work.

Design of GMC network group logos

Working alongside the internal communications team I designed these network group logos so that each of these networks had it's own clear and distinctive identity that can be used for it's own marketing materials. Even though each network logo has it's own personality through it's memorable design it also follows GMC brand guidelines such as use of font.

Refreshing the internal screen savers

The internal communications team were tired of the existing generic stock imagery that was being used for internal screensavers. The team and I felt that they were flat, boring, cliched and did not reflect the 'bold and bright' attitude of GMC employees. They asked me to come up with some new ideas and concepts.

The team needed to communicate an important message about GDPR to employees therefore it was important that these designs were eye-catching and memorable. In response I decided to play with relevant icons and symbols to convey the GDPR information in a fun, easy to understand and memorable way.

Internal posters promoting the launch of the new website

The internal team required posters and various other graphics to support the launch of the GMC's new website across the company. Here is an example of a promotional poster I designed in response to this. To find out more about how I contributed the GMC's new website design please click on this link http://www.suzannemurphy.co.uk/work/general-medical-council/