Al Rajhi is a multi-billion-dollar, family-owned group of companies covering industries from banking to agriculture and heavy industry. Sheikh Suleiman Al Rajhi made the decision to enter into the property development market and we were asked to develop the marketing strategy and brand communications.

Sheikh Suleiman is a self-made man, beginning his career as a street moneychanger and eventually building the largest Islamic bank in the world. He is renowned for his continual efforts to improve the lives of average Saudi citizens. Sheikh Suleiman saw this new property development effort as a chance to improve the very fabric of communities in the kingdom. Up until now, property development in Saudi Arabia has been a cottage industry: buildings are erected with little concern for their surroundings, urban planning concepts like mixed use development ideas are not mainstream yet and much more concern is placed on the bottom line than on the community.

We worked with the management team to identify a vision that corrects this balance and provides more social outcomes for the developments built under the Al Rajhi name. The brand identity we created is a nod to modernist values that promote the idea of harmony, strength and progress.

While the business was well funded, like any start-up, human resources were in short supply. So, our focus was to provide plug-and-play deliverables that could be deployed quickly. The parent brand would operate with many other indivudual property brands, so the parent Al Rajhi brand needs to flexible enough to work with the sub-brands and still remain powerful enough to lend credibility and quality to each property in the portfolio.

During the course of the project, we developed a bespoke Arabic typeface, which, won an international design award at the Type Director’s Club in New York.  The client has agreed to make this font available for other people and companies to use. This unusual act demonstrates the progressive vision of the Al Rajhi group.

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