A Make project
A local gym with expansion ambitions — and our way into a sector growing exponentially.
We took on Salus partly because the brief was good and partly to educate ourselves. Longevity and wellness is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world, and we wanted to understand it from the inside. Salus is a local strength and conditioning gym with ambitions to expand. It had a loyal community but no brand that could travel beyond the postcode. We spoke to thirty members about why they train. The answers ranged from aesthetics to overcoming chronic injuries, fighting depression, and pushing back against ageing. Building muscle is mechanical, physical, and emotional — and it’s different for everyone. The gym needed a brand that captured that range without narrowing it.
We positioned Salus around transformation and longevity — not vanity. The brand story was built on the insight that what keeps members coming back isn’t the equipment, it’s the community: personal trainers who push you, peers who hold you accountable, and a culture of train, eat, sleep, repeat. The identity was designed to conform to the visual cues of strength — bold, solid, confident — but with the organic texture of muscle: something living, adaptable, human. Not another chrome-and-neon gym brand. The launch strategy was hyper-local first: doordrops, targeted social campaigns, and events within a thirty-minute radius, designed to generate data on which emotional and rational levers to focus on when the time comes to open more locations.
A gym full of people — all ages, shapes, sizes, and abilities — working together to get strong. Lead generation campaigns are performing significantly better than before. Step one is complete: a brand that works locally and is built to scale. For us, the project delivered something equally valuable — a deep understanding of the longevity and wellness space, the emotional drivers behind it, and how brand works in a sector where the product is personal transformation. It’s a sector we’ll be doing more in.
Brand strategy and proposition
Brand design
Website art direction
Social media campaign
Event planning
Direct mail campaign
Vanity → Long-term health
Individual → Group inspiration
Weightlifting → Lifestyle
