World Intellectual Impairment Sport appoints Blue Strawberry Elephant to lead rebrand

The International Federation for Athletes with Intellectual Impairments (World Intellectual Impairment Sport) has appointed British branding agency Blue Strawberry Elephant to lead its rebrand which will be launched in late 2019.

The project is the biggest of its kind ever undertaken by World Intellectual Impairment Sport as it looks to create a clear, bold name and image to represent its diverse work around the world.

The organisation wants to make a clean break between its current brand whilst expanding on its presence and ethos as the world’s biggest high performance sports organisation for athletes with intellectual impairments.

Nick Parr, World Intellectual Impairment Sport Executive Director, said: “We are really excited to be working with the team at Blue Strawberry Elephant on a striking new brand which will take us into the future, help us to attract partners and ensure we are recognised as a global leader in our field.

“The survey we conducted in late 2018 attracted around 200 responses from athletes, members, and the public, most of whom told us we needed to make changes to help ensure our unique position is protected long into the future. This includes our move in recent years to include impairments such as autism and Down syndrome, filling a gap in high performance sport for these athletes.

“We therefore chose Blue Strawberry Elephant because of their experience working with other sport organisations and their belief in the transformative power of our work.”

The new brand is tentatively expected to be launched at the closing ceremony of the World Intellectual Impairment Sport Global Games in Brisbane, Australia, on 19 October. It will then be rolled out across the World Intellectual Impairment Sport membership over the following 12 months.

Parr continued: “We are counting on our members to help us introduce it to the world and continue to be our brand ambassadors on a national level.

“I would like to thank the other agencies for their impressive and insightful pitches – it was not an easy choice.”

Dave Atkin, Blue Strawberry Elephant’s Managing Director, said: “Being asked to design and develop a new name and brand identity for World Intellectual Impairment Sport is a great honour; also extremely humbling, given the quality of the American and Australian colleagues who competed for the project.

“We are really looking forward to collaborating on delivering the new identity in time for the Global Games.”

Blue Strawberry Elephant are a fully independent graphic design studio and brand consultancy; working with clients across most areas from sports and health services through to industrial, commercial and engineering sectors.

The agency and World Intellectual Impairment Sport will work to launch the new brand at the Global Games – the world’s biggest high performance sports event for athletes with an intellectual impairment.

Featuring over 1,000 athletes competing in 10 sports, the edition in Brisbane is expected to be the best yet.

As well as acting as the World Championships for most of the non-Paralympic sports on the programme, Brisbane 2019 offers athletes the chance to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics in athletics, swimming and table tennis.

In addition, athletes competing in new and trial eligibility groups (II2 – for athletes with a more significant impairment and II3 – for athletes with high functioning autism) have been added for the first time as World Intellectual Impairment Sport grows its reach around the world.

World Intellectual Impairment Sport has more than 80 national members and is the International Federation for a variety of summer and winter sports, organising world and regional Championships every year. The organisation also manages the eligibility process for athletics, swimming and table tennis – a requirement of classification in those sports.