When it comes to Smith+Nephew’s ability to positively impact lives, there are no limits. So, we built a brand that doesn’t have any either.

Smith+Nephew

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#### In brief

With 16,000 employees and a presence in more than 100 markets, Smith+Nephew is a leading global medical technology company, operating in Orthopedics, Advanced Wound Management and Sports Medicine, making a difference to millions of patients’ lives every day.

Throughout its 160-year history, the British powerhouse has been the first to market with multiple life-changing products, earning it an iconic status in the field.

When Smith+Nephew leadership set an ambitious growth strategy, our task was to provide a brand purpose and identity to help Smith+Nephew deliver on its vision.

#### What we did

Smith+Nephew has an extraordinary culture of care and empathy for each other, its customers and its patients. The improvement of patients’ lives is a crucial motivator throughout the organisation. However, in a global operation, it is easy for the perceived connection between day-to-day business and patient impact to be lost.

We set ourselves the task of elevating the positive effect that Smith+Nephew has on patient lives through its technological innovations – not just their role in a patient’s physical restoration, but the holistic impact that Smith+Nephew has on their mental well-being.

We created a new brand purpose statement – *Life Unlimited* – that sums up the brand’s belief that our bodies should never have a limit on what we can do, nor who we can be.

*Life Unlimited* became the perfect distillation of everything Smith+Nephew is at its best: a business that designs and makes technology that takes the limits off living; restoring people’s bodies, and their self-belief.

A purposeful business needs a purpose-driven culture. We created three pillars – ‘care’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘courage’ – aimed at turning a culture that cares, into a culture that wins.

For Smith+Nephew’s new identity, we drew inspiration from Matisse, an artist who overcame physical health challenges to produce the greatest work of his career.

A period in which the artist himself described as his ‘second life’, Matisse began “carving in colour”, creating vivid, striking paper cut-outs that reimagined the human body, and launched a revolution in contemporary art.

In homage to Matisse’s story, we re-drew the human body, while staying true to its form. Illustrating the shapes in playful and colourful ways, to tell the stories of boundaries broken and lives unlimited. They act as a visual metaphor for how colourful life can be, injecting a playful optimism into a calm and technical category.

The new brand purpose and identity launched in August 2019 and we continue working with Smith+Nephew around the world to help the business achieve its ambitions.

*The content and images are for illustration purposes only to demonstrate brand applications.*


One Show  
*Shortlist* – Branding  
*Merit* – Rebranding 

ADC NY  
*Merit* – Branding System/Identities

Leading global medical technology company, Smith+Nephew, creates life-changing products that have been restoring people’s physical health and mental wellbeing for over 160 years. Inspired by Matisse’s own journey of recovery, we carved out a colourful brand identity that tells a tale of optimism in an otherwise neutral technical category. 

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Elevating the positive effect of Smith+Nephew, leader in global medical technology, with a new brand purpose and identity.

Design Bridge and Partners | Smith+Nephew

Superunion and Design Bridge come together to create Design Bridge and Partners. Redefining what design is and what design can do for brands, businesses, people and the planet. We are a revolutionary design partnership.

Design Bridge and Superunion come together to create Design Bridge and Partners. Redefining what design is and what design can do for brands, businesses, people and the planet. We are a revolutionary design partnership.