Jacobs Futura Foundation
Bringing to life the complex dual mission of a pioneering philanthropic foundation at the point of launch.
The Jacobs Futura Foundation was established in London in 2024 with a bold and distinctive dual purpose - protecting the world's tropical rainforests and transforming the support available to athletes navigating life after sport. Two causes that on the surface appear separate, but are united by the same underlying belief: that lasting, positive change requires long-term strategic thinking, genuine partnership and an unwavering commitment to people and planet. For Esben Studio, this project carried a particular resonance. Our co-founder's own experience of leaving professional football and navigating an underprepared transition into a second career. When the Jacobs Futura Foundation approached us, it felt like a match made in heaven. We were brought in at the embryonic stages of the foundation's launch - tasked with taking the research and thinking the team had already produced and turning it into something that could communicate the full weight and complexity of their mission to the world.
Client
Jacobs Futura Foundation
Year
2024
Services
Branding, Creative Direction
Two missions. One foundation.
Creatively, this project was more challenging than what it seemed on paper. JFF's dual focus - rainforest preservation and athlete transition - are both complex, emotionally layered subjects that require very different tones, very different audiences and very different storytelling approaches. Bringing them together under a single foundation identity without one diminishing the other required careful, considered creative work. We approached it by finding the connective tissue between the two missions - the shared values of ambition, humility, collaboration and commitment that run through everything the foundation does. The design language, the structure of the materials and the way the narrative moved between the two focus areas was built to make the foundation feel coherent and unified, not divided. The result was a body of work that gave JFF the tools to tell both stories - with the depth and authority each deserved - while making it clear that together they represent something larger than the sum of their parts.
From research to reality.
The foundation had done the intellectual work. They had produced research, developed thinking and articulated their mission with real rigour. What they needed was someone to take that work and translate it into materials that could land with funders, partners and the wider world at the point of launch. We delivered a full suite of launch materials - a professionally designed print brochure, a digital version optimised for sharing and presentation, and an industry snapshot report that mapped the landscape of both focus areas and positioned the Jacobs Futura Foundation as a serious, informed new voice within it. These are the materials that open conversations with major donors, that get placed in front of governing bodies and that give the foundation the credibility and authority its ambitions deserve.
