The London Stock Exchange was facing growing competition with the use of electronic media breaking down international boundaries and share dealing through the internet becoming everyday. The launch of a new market focusing on technology shares provided a prime opportunity for the London Stock Exchange to revitalise its brand and keep it at the forefront of the world’s ferociously competitive stock markets.

The new market was to be only the first of a series of new initiatives. We were asked to create a naming system for the technology market itself and the others to follow, an identity system and visual style in just nine weeks. The identity system needed to challenge attitudes and set a whole new style for the Exchange, moving away the traditional and ‘institutional’, but still capable of ‘living’ with the corporate identity of the exchange and becoming part of the language of the market.

A new name for a new market - techMARK, a visual style that was about confidence and pace and flexibility in application that enabled it to be used in everything from stock market listings to literature.