For Simon Manchipp, founding partner at SomeOne, the rebrand of the UK’s Motability Scheme was an opportunity to level up the quality of design usually created for the disabled community.
“I have long thought that while accessibility is an essential in design work, it’s treated with very crude parameters,” he says. “For years the disabled community have been patronised and underserved by lacklustre work that demonstrates a total lack of care and respect.”
He continues, “Most of this work is undeniably ugly, overly simplistic and borderline patronising. I think what we’ve done here raises the thinking – to be accessible need not mean you are forgettable.”
It’s this passion and focus on raising the bar from all involved that has resulted in a significant win at the 2025 Wonder Global Awards, the online, global design competition covering categories like architectural, interior, product, graphic, and fashion design.
The awards are unusual as jury members are provided with completely anonymised entries, meaning they do not have access to the names or organisations of the creators — and that the Jury is made up of academics, practitioners and highly influential people in many sectors — not just branding.
We were absolutely delighted to see that the esteemed Jury chose to elevate our work for The Motability Scheme to their highest award, and name it design of the year in the branding category.
SomeOne ran a range of research groups, interviews and meetings with disabled people, and Manchipp says their input very directly shaped the final designs.
“The new design system came directly from these sessions, including the need for nuance and flexibility in online readability and accessibility, the depiction of disabled people in photography, the typography, iconography, how the brand approaches the use of illustration and more.”
SomeOne wanted the brand to be “more representative” and to speak to people with different requirements based on their different physical, cognitive, and visual disabilities.
A recent study found that two thirds of disabled people feel “excluded” from products and services that are not designed to meet their needs. And Manchipp believes everyone involved in the design process has to take more responsibility for the outputs.
“There needs to be intelligent conversation, on both client and design sides, to arrive at positive outcomes — rather than a ‘computer-says-no’ knee-jerk that may tick a box, but leaves everyone frustrated,” he says.
This applies as much to the branding process as it does product and industrial design. For example, readability guidelines encourage designers to use the highest contrast colour combinations, mainly black and white.
But that limits the visual richness designers are able to create, and so Manchipp and his team wanted to explore different options.
“The challenge was to combine high levels of accessibility with high levels of visual interest,” he said. “We had to make it striking, not stark.”
The team also levelled up the brand assets, to create a more aspirational and less functional feeling.
“If you look at a £5,000 bicycle, you are met by stunning photography, slick copywriting, a film that tells a story and engaging concepts,” Manchipp says.
“If you buy a £5,000 wheelchair, you are faced with a poorly photographed image of the chair on a white background with a functional description. Change is long overdue.”
Huge thanks to the entire team at Motability Operations and Motability Foundation including:
Andrew, Lisa, Danielle, Mia, Sophie, Julia, Nabila, Tyra & Cassandra.
Founding Partner
Simon Manchipp
Creative Director
Mark Smith
Design Director
Ian Dawson
Design team
Amy Matthews
Gina Hopkins
Lloyd Wood
Account Management
Amanda Leslau