The Equality Community Center (ECC) is a non-profit community center that houses LGBTQ+ and allied justice-seeking organizations under one roof in a safe, welcoming space to offer resources, community, and collaboration for local cultural and social organizations and the public. Eventually, the ECC will expand to include affordable and market-rate housing adjacent to the Center, giving residents easy access to their programs and services.
The problem: ECC was embarking on a Capital Campaign as a new organization, with a logo but no other branding guidelines or previous marketing initiatives. The logo was old, and universally disliked among Board members. They needed a suite of fundraising materials designed from scratch, with no budget or time to create a new logo, expecting that they would be embarking on a complete re-brand in a few years. However, a new logo specific to the Campaign was requested with the note that the existing, disliked organizational logo would also need to be used in all materials. The only specifications for their Campaign brand were that it should be contemporary, positive and inviting, and universally appealing; their target audience is demographically diverse.
The process: The Board was surveyed, and almost unanimously requested that the Campaign brand should not use their current logo colors (red and orange/yellow), should not use colors of a neighboring nonprofit with which they're frequently confused (lime green, purple), and not include the heavy use of rainbows (they wanted to emphasize the inclusion of all justice-seeking organizations, as they were evolving from their origin as a solely LGBTQ+ organization). However, they did not want materials developed with just black and white. We developed a preliminary marketing piece early on and used a simple graphic of bricks, which they liked as a symbol for building, growth, and strength. It was requested that we incorporate bricks in their Campaign branding.
The solution: ECC wanted some color in their materials but not red, orange, green, or purple, so we selected a blue, teal, and yellow-green as an accent. We used this in the Campaign logo and then very sparingly throughout Campaign materials—just enough to create cohesiveness. The bricks were used in the logo, with the Campaign slogan as the tagline. The logo guidelines allow for this to be used separately or together, with the intention to keep materials as clean as possible, as the red and orange logo would be included in all materials. We couldn't depend on images, as they didn't have much for us to use; many in their community declined the request for a photoshoot, and the building project was in its infancy. Stock photos had to be selected carefully because they were walking a fine line between not being able to use familiar people, and not wanting to present "fake" images to a constituency of donors in a tight-knit community who may interpret that as cold. Thus, to add visual interest (while keeping the use of color to a minimum), the bricks were used as a very light grey in the background.
Logos
Case for Support
