As we enter the 2026 planning season, it’s likely that some companies will be considering a rebrand as part of their New Year marketing strategies. But, how many are thinking about accessibility when they’re thinking about a brand refresh? Jonathan Hassell, CEO at Hassell Inclusion, argues why accessibility should be a key part of the rebranding priority list.
When I scroll through LinkedIn, one topic on which marketers and creatives seem to have a lot of opinions is company rebrands. These range from those for high-profile, globally recognized brands such as Jaguar, through to niche B2B businesses. Color palettes, font choices, and imagery are all discussed at length, and views are often divided.
Of course, the main reason for a rebrand is not because a marketing director prefers a specific color or font. They are usually driven by market conditions, or as part of a major strategic overhaul, whether that is to appeal to new audiences, as part of a digital-first refresh, or if the business is acquired by a different company.
However, one area that should be – but often isn’t – at the center of any rebrand is accessibility.
Why? Because if you are spending a significant amount of money on a new or refreshed brand, it is vital that it connects with as many people as possible.
For example, the purpose of your rebrand may be that you want to attract a younger audience. However, a significant number of this audience may have some sort of accessibility need, often due to neurodiversity. So, if you don’t meet these requirements, then your expensive new brand could fall flat.
When it comes to accessibility, most organisations use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as their guide. WCAG is useful for advising on accessible color combinations. However, many aspects of a brand, such as logos, are exempt from WCAG guidelines. And, WCAG says nothing about choice of fonts.
So, in branding, you need to go beyond the WCAG guidelines – looking deeper into the needs of people who may be dyslexic or autistic – to get accessibility right. And it’s essential to do this in the process of creating your new brand, as brand elements are expensive to change when they’ve been finalized. Once you set your brand, you’ll have to wait till the next rebranding to fix anything that you find isn’t accessible.
Ensuring that your brand is accessible isn’t a simple task. For an accessibility professional to be effective as part of a rebrand project, they need to have a deep understanding of both accessibility and the value of a brand. In our experience, accessibility professionals without a nuanced appreciation and respect for branding can come over as naive, patronizing, and obstructive when working with branding agencies.
For example, we know that colors are usually chosen by marketers and branding agencies for very specific reasons. So, if an accessibility professional’s recommendation is to completely change two of the colors in a palette to fit WCAG, that may devalue the aim of the colors chosen and the harmony of the colors in the palette, undermining brand equity and beauty that may have been built up over many years.
Since my time working at the BBC, I’ve helped many high-profile organizations and their brand agencies ensure accessibility in rebrands, with a particular focus on how it will be used across different media channels such as digital, print, social, and presentations.
That’s why brand agencies seek me out time and again to support them. And why, when I get a call from an agency to help with a rebrand, I drop everything to support them, as I know how critical it is to get right.
For me, there are five key areas to focus on to ensure accessibility is considered in a rebranding process:
1. Embed inclusivity right from the start. Everything should be designed for inclusivity, but it is also important to ensure that your brand value of inclusion is authentic. For example, your brand guidance around use of images of people should include showing those with visible disabilities, but this needs to be done in an authentic, not tokenistic, way.
2. Consistency is everything. Accessibility consideration needs to go across all elements of your brand, including names, logos, typefaces, images, icons, and marks in brand systems. This also needs to happen across all your media channels. For example, think about how your brand is used on your social media profiles – can people read the text in your logo when it is used in a smaller thumbnail size?
3. Check the brand works across different preferences. One great way to ensure website accessibility is to offer personalization options, such as allowing visitors to experience your site, app, or emails in dark mode. You need to make sure your brand still works across the personalization options you support.
4. Update your thinking on fonts. One question we’re often asked is whether the use of serif fonts goes against accessibility best practice. While sans-serif fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Verdana, or Tahoma are generally better for people with conditions such as dyslexia, this doesn’t mean that serif fonts can never be used. We have found that many marketers are held back by ‘pre-retina screen thinking’ – advances in screen technology mean that serif fonts appear sharp and clear on the screens we’ve been using for at least the last 10 years.
5. There’s no such thing as an inaccessible color. We often see that colors are labelled ‘accessible’ or ‘ADA compliant’ in brand guidelines we review, when it’s actually the combination of colors that needs to be considered. We work with agencies to ensure sets of colors chosen for primary brand and data visualizations are both on-brand and accessible against light and dark backgrounds.
A rebrand is more than a logo; it is something that should be reflected in all your brand touchpoints, from the images, colors, and fonts you use to your tone of voice and choice of language. People with disabilities benefit from strong, clear branding as much as everyone else; they just also need things to be accessible.
Rebrands are the result of considerable hard work by marketers and brand agencies to make sure they not only get it right, but that they get it right first time. You only have one chance to make a good first impression, but if this impression alienates a large proportion of your audience who have accessibility needs, then it could be a costly mistake to make.
That is why it is important to work with a partner that understands both accessibility and brand value. Do that, and the rewards can be huge.
