brand voice – Nick Carson

Shifting perspective with a poetic wobbly mirror

October 24, 2025November 3, 2025Nick Carson

I collaborated with NB Studio and SEA to create ‘Conversion’, a two-metre-high fairground-style distorting mirror.

Part of the 26 Bridges initiative for Bloomsbury Festival 2025, the piece presents Millennium Bridge as a symbolic connection between two London icons: St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern.

Photo credit: NB Studio

The title ‘Conversion’ operates on multiple levels: religious conversion (Catholicism to Protestantism); architectural conversion (Bankside Power Station becoming Tate Modern); and the broader transformation of the Bankside area from historic den of iniquity to cultural hub.

At the heart of the project is a palindromic poem that shifts perspective when flipped. Depending on which direction it’s read, dual-meaning terms – ‘vice’, ‘vision’, ‘muse’, and ‘divine’ – switch between sacred and secular significance.

Photo credit: NB Studio

The distorting mirror concept playfully references Millennium Bridge’s notorious nickname – ‘the wobbly bridge’ – as well as the blurred lines between the language used for both readings of the mirror poem.

The poem is typeset using striking matt-silver vinyl lettering, featuring a winding, river-like gutter down the centre to mimic the flow of the Thames.

The 26 Bridges artworks were auctioned in October 2025 to raise funds for University College London Hospitals (UCLH), specifically supporting a specialist clinical nurse for skin cancer patients.

Press coverage

Distorting mirror bridges poetry, design and perspective for NHS cancer care auction
Creative Boom

This shifting mirror artwork is a love letter to London landmarks (and it could be yours)
Creative Bloq

Featured in Design Week’s The Outline on 24 September 2025

Other 26 projects

Besides 26 Bridges, as an active member of the 26 writers collective I have contributed to many projects since 2020.

Click each project title to reveal more details:

26 Memento Mori

I created a short fiction series called Seasonal Transitions, depicting a dystopian future where experiences of death are controlled – but human emotion can’t be contained.
• Spring: The Memory Gardener
• Summer: The Fever Collector
• Autumn: The Change Artist
• Winter: The Silence Keeper (coming soon)

26 Places in Cornwall

My poem captures the rich history of the smuggling cove at Lansallos, exhibited with accompanying photography at the Poly Gallery, Falmouth.

26 Inspirations

I teamed up with my three-year-old son for an exhibition at Bloomsbury Festival on the theme of inspiration. This included a stream-of-consciousness poem giving a snapshot of the world through his eyes.

26 Orphans (with The Foundling Museum)

I chose cult-favourite bounty hunter Boba Fett for this project about fictional orphans and foundlings. Set inside the Sarlacc’s stomach, my sestude explores Fett’s identity as an orphaned clone as he recalls witnessing his father’s death.

Threads of Time (with Fine Cell Work)

I was a senior editor for this coffee-table book telling the stories of the prisoners who lent their newfound needlework skills to a rich array of artefacts.

26 Wild (with The Wildlife Trusts)

I championed the endangered narrow-headed ant through a short poem. I also contributed a haiku lamenting damage to seagrass meadows for 26 Pledges, another Wildlife Trusts collaboration highlighting at-risk habitats and biomes.

26 Weeks

For this project capturing the trauma of Covid-19 from 34 different perspectives, my conversation partner was Jaipur-based cultural guide Raj – who, over the course of the pandemic, lost both his livelihood and his father, and rediscovered the importance of the simple things.

Dejumbling insurance with mischievous wordplay

October 24, 2025November 13, 2025Nick Carson

I collaborated with Taxi Studio to develop the brand voice for fintech challenger Yoloh.

Most insurance brands trade on fear and confusion. Yoloh set out to flip that script – helping people spend more time living, not form-filling.

Working closely with Taxi’s brand and strategy teams, I helped develop ‘Insurance dejumbled’ – a powerful brand platform that untangles complexity at every touchpoint.

Video credit: Taxi Studio

At the heart of the brand expression is four-fingered digital assistant ‘Andi’. When you first fire up the app, the phrase ‘Andi censured jumble’ is nimbly rearranged into the tagline ‘Insurance dejumbled’ – demonstrating the brand’s unique offer in a playful, memorable way.

Read more about the Yoloh strategy in Taxi’s case study.

Yoloh’s ambigram brand mark is identical when flipped upside down, inspiring the supporting line: “Making life easier, whichever way you look at it.”

Video credit: Taxi Studio

We then took the creative concept of ‘dejumbling’ to the next level, transforming the many different varieties of insurance into memorable, contextually relevant anagrams.

“Any incidents ruin me” became “indemnity insurance”
“Canal in dentures” became “dental insurance”
“Mourns a Citroën” became “motor insurance”

These weren’t just wordplay – they symbolised how even the most tangled concepts could be unscrambled into something human and approachable.

I developed Yoloh’s brand voice, starting with a top-level brand personality: ‘Attentive Guide’. Built around three core principles – Accessible, Attentive and Proactive – the voice turns tedious policy wording into friendly, human conversations, with a touch of warmth and wit.

“The breadth and depth of Nick’s knowledge is such a rich foundation for his copywriting. He gets under a new brand’s skin quickly and with all the smarts in all the right places. He provides so much more to creative outcomes than words.”
Emma Hopton – creative strategist, Taxi Studio

Press coverage

Taxi Studio balances trust and play in Yoloh rebrand
Design Week

Taxi reveals new brand for insurtech platform Yoloh
Creative Boom

How a fun rebrand and a new mascot boosted this brand’s reputation tenfold
Creative Bloq

Overplaying their hand
Brand New (subscription needed)

Awards for Yoloh
Bronze Award – Brand Impact Awards 2025

Championing a cleaning brand’s sustainable vision

July 23, 2020April 1, 2022Nick CarsonLeave a Comment

I helped Superunion tell the brand story of eco-friendly cleaning company Delphis Eco.

Following a joint briefing with the creative team and the client, I conducted an in-depth interview with Delphis Eco’s passionate, self-confessedly belligerent founder Mark Jankovich.

The first section, below, captures the story’s unlikely origins in the world of cut-throat finance – where Jankovich had the epiphany that drove him to drop everything and radically change his career direction.

“I woke up one day and thought, ‘Enough’s enough.'” – Mark Jankovich

Mark’s story

It was 2007, the year before the finance sector went into meltdown.

Mark had been working on a more joined-up approach to RBS Group’s corporate social responsibility. He argued that the banking giant needed to consider its impact on the world.

But profit was king, and Mark’s holistic plan was laughed out of the room. He quit the next day, with a burning desire to make a meaningful difference in whatever way he could. His goal was simple: build a business, any business, that could have a net-positive impact. After scouring the globe for candidates, he discovered a Liverpool-based chemist making professional-standard cleaning products from eco-friendly natural ingredients.

Delphis Eco leads by example when it comes to sustainability

The business had been struggling, and had racked up significant debts. But despite having no experience in the sector, Mark saw huge potential for social and environmental impact.

Shortly after the birth of his second child, and with no salary as a safety net, he threw everything he had into the venture, adopting a one-star roadside hotel as a rudimentary base near the warehouse in Bootle while he worked to turn the business around.

The brand story is set firmly in the context of the global climate emergency

Mark was prepared to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. To win one of Delphis Eco’s first major contracts, he spent seven months getting up at 4am to scrub Iceland stores, demonstrating to the supermarket why it should switch.

He also knew he had to get the products into the right hands, so cut out the middleman. Knowing the Prince of Wales to be an ardent eco-campaigner, he cold-called Clarence House and challenged the Prince’s staff to test the products. The risk paid off, ultimately leading to Delphis Eco receiving two Royal Warrants.

At the heart of Delphis Eco’s success story is Mark’s refusal to accept something is impossible, and the passion, belligerence and drive to prove it can be done.

Mark has lobbied the UK government to promote sector-wide change

The story goes on to explore how Delphis Eco has responded to the bigger-picture context of the climate emergency, and reveals the brand’s many sector-leading green innovations and related campaigns – including lobbying for meaningful change at the highest level.

Rolling out tone of voice for a European bank

March 14, 2019January 28, 2020Nick CarsonLeave a Comment

HROD logo showing four quadrants. Image credit: 31% Wool

Client: 31% Wool / EBRD
Disciplines: Copywriting, tone of voice
Duration: 9 days

I helped 31% Wool make EBRD’s HR department more engaging and approachable.

31% Wool’s verbal narrative for the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development’s newly formed ‘HR and Organisational Department’ (HROD) is based on four ‘quadrants’ that play on banking terminology.

All communications are framed in terms of assets, liabilities, risks and returns. HROD might describe people as its “greatest asset”, for instance, or discuss “unlocking returns” for its staff.

My brief was to translate this conceptual approach across a range of materials – from landing pages to onboarding packs – while balancing the need to be punchy and direct, but also warm and welcoming.

Read more on 31% Wool’s website…

Landing pages from HROD website. Image credit: 31% Wool

I also wrote guidelines to help HROD staff maintain this tone of voice across other day-to-day applications.

Tone of voice booklet for HROD. Image credit: 31% Wool

“Nick quickly grasped the intricacies and breadth of the client’s verbal comms, and brought to life some previously quite generic pieces with our new verbal language and a consistent tone of voice. He was happy to turn around some tight client deadlines, and I hope we’ll be working on more projects together in the future.”
Julia Woollams, creative director, 31% Wool