Brand direction and bespoke illustration for News UK's internal security awareness programme.
ClientNews UK
IndustryNews publishing
Year2023
ServicesBrand direction · Illustration · Tone of voice · Development
01Stage 01 of 03
The challenge.
Every major news publisher is a target. For News UK — the British publisher behind The Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times and Times Radio — cyber and information-security risk is a daily operating reality, not a theoretical one. Every journalist, editor, engineer and support-function colleague interacts with systems holding live source material, stories-in-progress, and sensitive personal data. A single mishandled link or reused password can compromise a confidential source, a commercial negotiation, or the safety of a reporter in the field.
The internal security team had a strong technical programme already in place, but a familiar communications problem. Corporate security messaging tends to fail in predictable ways inside large media organisations: dense policy documents nobody reads, stock-image posters that disappear into the wallpaper, and a tone of voice closer to legal compliance than to professional craft. News UK wanted something colleagues across editorial, commercial and operational functions would actually engage with — communications that respected the audience as the experienced professionals they are.
02Stage 02 of 03
The approach.
The brief was approached as an editorial brand problem rather than a poster problem. Working closely with the internal security team, a bespoke illustration system was developed to translate complex security concepts — phishing, credential hygiene, access control, privileged accounts, incident reporting — into clear, recognisable visual language. Every illustration was commissioned from scratch rather than pulled from a library, and the visual approach was designed to feel native to the publishing environment rather than parachuted in from a generic security vendor.
Tone of voice guidelines were written to match the visual system: direct, respectful, and grounded in the day-to-day reality of a working newsroom. Brand direction extended into interactive learning modules, internal campaign assets, and workshop materials, each tailored to the specific risk profiles faced across editorial, commercial, technology and operational teams. The design system was built to scale across roller banners, screensavers, intranet articles, leaflets and printed collateral without losing coherence as it travelled.
03Stage 03 of 03
The outcome.
A full bespoke illustration library was delivered alongside written tone-of-voice guidelines, campaign templates, printed collateral, and a suite of interactive awareness modules. The system covered every major touchpoint in the internal programme — posters, roller banners, leaflets, coasters, intranet content and onboarding materials — and gave the security team a coherent visual language they could deploy across multi-month awareness campaigns rather than one-off communications.
The work has continued to serve the brand long after the original commission. The illustration set has been reused, extended and re-skinned for subsequent annual programmes, and the tone-of-voice guidelines remain the editorial reference point for security communications across the business. Sentiment from the team responsible for the programme has been positive throughout, with the work cited internally as a measurable shift in how seriously colleagues engage with security messaging — a rare outcome in a discipline where most internal communications are tolerated rather than read.
Selected frames
From the project.
In motion
Rolling footage.
Have worked with Terri and the team for over a decade. Brought them in to help reset cyber messaging and awareness for the biggest global news media provider in the world! Amazing job! Then went on to do the same for Sainsbury's. Brilliant effort all round. Thank you.
If something here resonates with where you're heading, the next step is a thirty-minute call. No slides, no fluff — leave with a concrete plan whether we work together or not.
