Networking Group Brand

Branding | Logo Design | Marketing

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

increase in meeting attendance & membership in the next 3 months

A before shot of the visuals the group was working with.

The Process

Being a new organization in rural New Hampshire many of the brands and marketing were primitive and lacking. I jumped into this 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 is not completely accurate, so after a loose brainstorm I highlight the best and most pertinent concepts.

I've been ideating in Procreate to keep the digital adaptability

For a project this size I experimented with 40 different concepts

This is an example of the Brand Board, the illustrator file in which I'm building and experimenting with numerous forms.

These words inspire the forms I look for, with a longer three word name for the organization ideating with the Acronym EBD led to be the most fruitful when matching concepts to the name. Some ideas utilize different concept combinations, varying the message slightly as a mean to further explore then hone the logo. Considering the form and concept I continued to work through the three ideas that were aesthetic and communicated the concepts, while choosing between slightly different approaches based on pictures or the acronym.

Audience Approval

I use the term Design by Democracy literally. At a certain point in the process I had 3 functional and presentable options, with tailored colors and typography specimen sheets. The best solution in this case is 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 a general buy in to the final design.

The second most popular was held back by misconceptions of the DNA

The least popular with only a few votes, perhaps unclear forms

(Voting) ensured accurate messaging but also a general buy in to the final design.

With almost 80% approval this acronym form became the final design

Animated Evolution Business Development Logo

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.

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