Networking Group Brand
A free virtual networking group with members across the country needed a brand that communicated its mission and culture.
Role
Art Director, Motion & Graphics Design
2x
increase in meeting attendance & membership in the next 3 months
For a project this size I experimented with 40 different concepts
The Process
Being a new organization in rural New Hampshire, many of the brand and marketing materials were primitive and lacking. I jumped in looking to modernize and make a more scalable image for the group. My process for branding always begins with a word map — collecting free thoughts, then highlighting the best and most pertinent concepts.
These words inspire the forms I look for. With a longer three-word name for the organization, ideating with the acronym EBD proved most fruitful when matching concepts to the name. I continued to work through the ideas that were aesthetic and communicated the concepts, choosing between approaches based on imagery or the acronym.
The second most popular was held back by misconceptions of the DNA
The least popular with only a few votes, perhaps unclear forms
Audience Approval
I use the term “Design by Democracy” literally. At a certain point in the process I had three functional and presentable options, with tailored colors and typography specimen sheets. The best solution was to present to the stakeholders — in this case, the members — and let them vote on their favorite using SurveyMonkey. This ensured accurate messaging but also general buy-in to the final design.
With almost 80% approval this acronym form became the final design
Voting ensured accurate messaging but also a general buy in to the final design.
Conclusion
Taking the final logo design and applying the brand anatomy to social media assets and a couple other fun brand materials such as the motion graphic presented here, the best lessons of this for me were in noticing the differences in how organization structure affects the decisions of branding and how it affects my understanding as well. I am always pleasantly surprised by the results of my projects, especially when they have unexpected conclusions.
Animated Evolution Business Development Logo
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