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Office interior featuring a large wall graphic made up of colourful photographic panels celebrating the communities and places across West and North London

NHS West and North London ICB interior branding

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For NHS West and North London ICB, we translated a new brand identity into a workplace that could help unite staff through a major merger. Across the Marylebone Road office, the 13-strand ribbon became a practical environmental system – supporting wayfinding, bringing colour and clarity to each floor, and creating a shared sense of place for a newly combined organisation serving 4.5 million people across 13 boroughs.

Large-scale ribbon wall graphic applied across an office corridor, bringing colour and movement into the NHS West and North London ICB workspace.

The challenge

NHS West and North London ICB was formed through the merger of two existing Integrated Care Boards, bringing together a large and complex organisation serving 4.5 million people across 13 boroughs. For staff, the merger marked a period of significant change: new structures, new relationships, new ways of working and a need to feel part of something shared, rather than attached to a legacy organisation.

The new Marylebone Road head office was an important part of that transition. It needed to support practical day-to-day working, but also play a more symbolic role. In a hot-desking environment spread across multiple floors, the space had to feel clear, welcoming and easy to navigate. More importantly, it had to feel owned by the newly formed organisation.

The challenge was to translate the new brand identity into a working environment without making the space feel over-branded or decorative. The office needed to feel recognisably NHS, professional and accessible, while giving staff a stronger sense of orientation, belonging and connection to the wider West and North London system.

Hanging wayfinding sign for NHS West and North London ICB, directing staff and visitors to a meeting room and confidential suite.
Third floor lift lobby with a large white floor number and purple ribbon wall graphic, creating a clear arrival point within the office.
Directional wall graphic for the second floor, using yellow ribbon arrows to guide staff to desks, meeting rooms, executive offices and confidential suites.

The process

The interiors work built directly from the new brand identity, but it needed to solve a different set of problems. This was not simply about taking a graphic device and placing it on walls. The environment had to help people move through the space, understand where they were, and feel that the building belonged to the new organisation.

We started by looking at how the office would be used: where staff and visitors would arrive, which areas would be more public-facing, where people would pause, and where wayfinding needed to be most immediate. From this, we developed a set of design principles for the space: use colour coding by floor, create bold entrances at key arrival points, then allow the graphics to become lighter and more subtle within working areas. The use of NHS blue was dominant on the ground floor as the most external-facing part of the building, with colour shifting across the upper floors.

Concepts were developed for the main environmental touchpoints: the ground floor welcome wall, lift lobbies, internal office walls, lightboxes, lift directories, toilet screens and door signage. Each element was considered as part of a wider system, so the office could feel coherent without every surface carrying the same treatment.

The requirements

  • A branded environmental concept for the new Marylebone Road office
  • A clear visual approach for applying the new identity across four floors
  • Feature wall concepts for key arrival points, lift lobbies and office areas
  • Directional signage for internal wayfinding
  • Door signage templates that could be updated practically by the internal team
Close-up of NHS West and North London ICB lift directory, showing coloured ribbon markers and raised floor numbers for current level.
Lightbox graphic for NHS West and North London ICB showing the 13 boroughs and ribbon brand device within the Marylebone Road office.

The solution

The creative approach extended the new brand’s central ribbon device into the physical environment. Built from 13 strands, representing the boroughs within West and North London, the ribbon became a flexible tool for wayfinding, placemaking and visual continuity.

Across the building, colour does more than add energy. It gives each floor a clearer identity. The ground floor is anchored in NHS blue, creating a confident and recognisable welcome at the most public-facing point of the building. The first floor shifts into greens, the second into yellows and warm tones, and the third into pinks and purples. This creates a simple, intuitive rhythm through the building: each level feels connected to the wider system, but distinct enough to help staff understand where they are – especially important when desks are booked online and need to be found by staff when they arrive on site.

Second floor lobby with yellow wall graphic, large floor number and floor plan to help staff navigate the hot-desking office.

At key arrival points, the ribbon becomes bold and directional. The ground floor welcome wall introduces the organisation with confidence, pairing a large-scale ribbon graphic with essential directional information. The lift lobbies use oversized floor numbers, colour-coded ribbon sections and floor plan options, creating moments that are both branded and practical. These areas act almost like punctuation points within the building: clear, visible and easy to understand at a glance.

Further into the office, the system becomes lighter. Internal walls use fragments of the ribbon alongside arrows and destination information, helping guide people without overwhelming working areas. Hero wall graphics use large-scale ribbon device incorporating imagery from the 13 boroughs, bringing a stronger sense of place into the office while keeping the overall system visually consistent.

First floor lift lobby with green ribbon wall graphic, large white floor number and floor plan for staff wayfinding.
Printed welcome guide for NHS West and North London ICB’s Marylebone Road office, using the new ribbon identity across staff onboarding materials.

Ave have brought our offices to the 21st century and beyond, taking a bland corporate office space and provided exceptional branding as two NHS organisations merge to form the largest ICB in the country. They worked closely with the construction and comms teams – particularly around wayfinding, designing a clear wayfinding system that met both public and private requirements – the wall graphics, signage, colours and systems proposed by Ave take the building to a new level fitting for a new organisation. Ave were proactive, responsive, managed stakeholder expectations expertly and were a joy to work with – even personally overseeing installations out of hours (to 1am!) – coming in under budget and ahead of program.”

Ciara Ryan
Associate Director of Estates

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