After an international pitch process, North East design agency Sail Creative were selected as the agency to lead brand and creative for IWeigh, the activist platform, founded by Jameela Jamil in 2018.
What began as an Instagram story shared by the actor in March 2018, in which she listed her achievements, quirks, likes and passions as opposed to her body weight – a staple of women’s magazines’ image galleries – quickly caught the imagination of the online community and now has a global Instagram following of over 1 million.
To date, IWeigh have assisted in changing global policies around diet and detox products being shown to minors on Facebook and Instagram. The campaign is also currently campaigning for two bills to reach the Senate.
North East agency Sail Creative will work with the I Weigh team in Los Angeles and London to develop the brand as it expands its remit into international brand partnerships, health and wellness events, exhibitions and mass participation events.
Mandy Barker, who hails from Scarborough, founded Sail Creative in Newcastle in 2016. To date, Sail’s clients include Women of Tyneside, Newcastle Carers and Sunderland Council. Since 2018, Mandy has participated in the Natwest Entrepreneur Accelerator scheme, which provides mentorship to founders of Newcastle-based SMEs. The agency is currently based in the Natwest Accelerator Hub on Newcastle’s Quayside.
2019 saw the agency go from strength to strength, with the hiring of Northumberland-based, Loughborough University graduate Katherine Faid, increasing the team size by a third. To accommodate this growth, this month the agency will be moving across the river to the Northern Design Centre in Gateshead.
Erin Finnegan, Operations Director and Meg Ellis, Brand Director of IWeigh, said: “We chose to work with Sail Creative largely in part due to their female-led team and clear dedication to social change through design. Their approach to working with clients is a fresh departure from the standard creative process, with bold graphics and strong concepts and messaging, they developed alongside our team reflects our mission effortlessly. It has furthered our impact on a global level, reaching more audiences and strengthening relationships with world-known brands. We love our updated brand and are proud to have Mandy and Sail as a part of our story!”
Mandy Barker said: “Our approach to branding as a movement, to making brand communications meaningful reflects the new ways in which audiences engage both online and offline. We value authentic activism and radical inclusivity, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to devise the new brand for IWeigh as well as the current campaign I Will.”
Sail’s brand development for IWeigh will focus on user-generated content and building a community which is safe, radical and optimistic “the building of a movement, not a brand,” commented Mandy. “It was important we created a strong brand that was dynamic but easy for the audience to own. The concept ‘rebellion with cause’ reflects this and IWeigh’s ethos of inclusivity and positive activism. The typographic elements can constantly change and evolve to represent the world-changing issues IWeigh is tackling.”
