Client: Henley IM
Industry: Investment Management
Sector: Real Estate, Development & Operating Businesses
Building the Future through Smart Investing™
Overview
Having worked with Henley for almost 20 years, supporting the business across brand, design and digital communications as the organisation has grown and evolved, we were retained to refresh the website and create a more contemporary, visual and engaging digital presence — one that better represents Henley today while providing a platform capable of supporting the business as it continues to evolve.
The previous Henley website, also designed by Crux, had served the business successfully for almost a decade. At the time it was created, Henley was focused on establishing its credentials within the investment sector, and the website reflected that with a more corporate, finance-led approach.
Ten years on, the business had changed significantly. Henley had become a much broader investment and development organisation, with activities spanning major residential and mixed-use developments, social housing, international partnerships, commercial real estate and a growing portfolio of operating businesses. The existing website no longer reflected the scale or diversity of the organisation, while the messaging and content had become too dry and financially focused for the range of audiences Henley now needed to engage.
Crux was retained to refresh the website, creating a more contemporary, visual and engaging digital presence that better represented Henley today while providing a platform capable of supporting the business as it continues to evolve.
Our approach
The starting point was to understand how Henley itself had changed and what role the website now needed to play.
Henley communicates with a particularly diverse audience. Institutional investors and joint-venture partners need to see experience, financial credibility and a strong track record, while local authorities, planning teams, residents and consumers can approach the organisation from a very different perspective.
The challenge was therefore to communicate the scale and sophistication of the business without allowing traditional private equity language to define the entire experience.
Working closely with Henley’s senior team, we reviewed the existing content and structure and developed a clearer way of presenting the organisation. Rather than organising the website predominantly around financial investment strategies, the new approach focused more directly on the areas in which Henley operates and the tangible outcomes of its work.
This allowed major developments and regeneration projects, international partnerships and operating businesses to play a much more prominent role in telling the Henley story, making the organisation easier to understand for audiences both within and outside the investment sector.
A significant part of the brief was also to make the website considerably more visual.
Over the years Henley had accumulated an extensive library of high-quality project photography, CGI, drone footage, film and development content, much of which had previously played only a limited role online. We brought this material to the forefront of the new design, using imagery and video to communicate the scale and ambition of projects that could never be adequately conveyed through financial statistics or corporate copy alone.
Large-scale developments including Ebbsfleet, major regeneration projects in Manchester and Birmingham, The Halcyon Naples and Henley’s work within social housing provided an opportunity to show the breadth of the organisation through the places and communities it is helping to create.
Messaging was refined alongside the visual approach, reducing some of the more technical investment terminology and introducing a cleaner, more accessible narrative around investment, development, partnerships and businesses.
The result is a website that works as both a corporate validator and a signpost into the wider Henley organisation. Visitors can quickly establish the scale, credibility and breadth of the business before moving into the projects, partnerships, businesses or specialist areas most relevant to them.
From a design perspective, the intention was never to reinvent the Henley brand. Crux had previously developed the identity and brand system, which remained appropriate for the business. Instead, we evolved its digital expression through stronger typography, more generous layouts, richer media and a cleaner hierarchy of content.
The Result
The refreshed Henley website provides a much more accurate reflection of the organisation today. By moving away from a predominantly finance-led presentation and placing greater emphasis on projects, people, partnerships and visual content, the new website communicates the scale and diversity of the business in a clearer and more engaging way.
It provides Henley with a contemporary investment company website that can speak effectively to multiple audiences while retaining the credibility expected of an established international investment and real estate business.
For Crux, the project also represents the latest stage in a client relationship spanning almost two decades. Having supported Henley through significant changes in its brand and business, the new website builds on that accumulated understanding while creating a digital platform ready for the next stage of its growth.
385
%
Increase in visits to core business areas
141
%
Increase in homepage sessions
5
x
More visits to key areas of the business
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