Four locations. Twenty businesses. One coherent brand.
We built the original Veksthuset identity in 2021, when the community was one location and four businesses. By 2025, it had grown into something far larger and far more complex. Time to revitalise.
The Challenge
When we first worked with Veksthuset in 2021, the brief was straightforward. One location in Askim. Four businesses. A new identity to bring them together.
Four years later, Veksthuset had grown into something entirely different. Four locations across the region. 20–25 independent businesses. Over 130 individuals. An ambition to keep growing.
The original identity had served its purpose, but it was built for a much smaller, simpler organisation. It couldn't carry the weight of what Veksthuset had become, or communicate the genuine value of what made it unique. Communication was inconsistent. There was no shared language, no common concept, no coherent visual system that could flex across all the different businesses while holding them together as one community.
There was also a deeper challenge. The businesses in Veksthuset are independent, each with their own identity, their own clients, their own way of working. Creating a shared brand meant navigating the tension between a unified whole and the distinct character of each part. It required co-branding principles, not just a single identity system.
And for that to happen, people had to feel heard. A brand nobody helped shape is a brand nobody owns.
THE SOLUTION
We started in August 2025 with a questionnaire sent to all users of Veksthuset, gathering insight before a single concept had been sketched. From there, we ran four workshops across all locations, with leaders, employee representatives and partner businesses from Askim, Ski, Trøgstad and Fetsund. Thirty-six people involved across the process.
The principle guiding everything was building the brand from the inside out. Before we could define how Veksthuset should look or sound, we needed to understand what it truly stood for, in the words of the people who lived it every day. What emerged was a clear strategic foundation: purpose, vision, mission, values and a defined brand personality. Unifying, energetic and solution-oriented.
The tagline that crystallised the whole: "Vi skaper mer, sammen" – We create more, together.
The communication concept was built around the idea of symbiosis, the mutually beneficial relationship between Veksthuset and its customers, partners, employees and local community. Each location was given its own character within the shared system: Askim as the engine, Ski as the pulse, Fetsund as the seedling, Trøgstad as the heart.
From that foundation, we developed the complete brand identity, including visual identity, tone of voice, brand guidelines and co-branding principles for the independent businesses operating under the Veksthuset umbrella. We redesigned and rebuilt the entire website with new functionality, all new copy, and a member directory bringing all 130 individuals together in one place. Social media templates, presentation templates, print materials and a promotional film completed the system.
THE IMPACT
Veksthuset launched the revitalised brand in January 2026. The process itself created as much value as the outcome, with thirty-six people across four workshops, representing twenty businesses and four locations, aligned around a shared direction for the first time.
People who had worked side by side for years found a common language for what they were building together. The co-branding principles gave independent businesses the tools to communicate their own identity while clearly belonging to something larger. And the brand became something the community felt ownership of, because they had helped shape it.
Externally, Veksthuset now communicates with the consistency and confidence the concept always deserved. Internally, the pride was already there. Now the brand reflects it.
“KastleBlack has been with us since the very beginning, when Veksthuset was just one location and four businesses. When we had grown into something far larger and more complex, it was natural to turn to them again. The process they led us through was unlike anything we had done before. By involving our people across all four locations from the start, the result felt like ours, not something imposed on us from the outside. We now have a brand that truly reflects who we are and where we are going. We create more, together.”
