THE CENTER FOR INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Branding and graphic design informed by social justice for the Center for Institutional and Social Change (the Change Center) at Columbia Law School. The Change Center facilitates the collaboration of scholars, practitioners, community advocates, students, policymakers, and artists striving to address structural inequality through institutional transformation.
We conducted brand discovery meetings, rebranded their logo, created a logo system, provided brand guidelines, and assisted with web design.
Social Justice Lens:
- Our branding strategy focused on racial and social justice, inclusion and critical thinking by creating stories, designs, exercises and solutions that were empowering to their target audiences and internal staff.
- Because of our holistic design approach, we were able to realign the Center for Institutional and Social Change’s values, expand their vision and come up with an aesthetic that truly reflects their brand.
Date
2019-2022Services Provided
Art Direction, Brand Guidelines, Branding, Graphic Design, Illustration, Layout, Logo Design, Marketing Collateral, Merchandise, Print, Social MediaBranding Discovery Meetings
We crafted and conducted several branding discovery meetings with the ultimate goal to dig deep into who the Change Center was and aspired to be. Our process involved looking over goals, values, mission, conducting exercises, role-plays and brand personas which were all informed by our social justice design approach.
We found out there was disconnect between who the Change Center used to be and how they wanted to exist in the world. This point of tension was the beginning of a brand overhaul.
Logo Rebrand
The brief
- The original logo didn’t express the brand’s values and personality.
- The original logo only worked in certain channels and specific formats.
- The original logo only provided one lock-up which made its usage limited. The long brand name provides extra challenges.
- The full name only connects with a few types of audiences.
The design
- A key component of our branding discovery meetings was to lay a foundation for the visual design of the brand. By applying our branding expertise + our social justice lens we were able to collect information about who the Change Center wanted to be.
- After gathering data from our branding discovery meetings, we designed a logo that expressed the brand’s values and personality through its shape, movement, typography and colors.
- We focused on a design that expressed both forward-thinking (typography perspective) and safety (square shape), since the Change Center is both radical and functions within a traditional institution.
- We created a responsive logo system so that no matter where, the Change Center’s logo always works.
- We also created a logo with a new proposed condensed name “Change Center” based on data collected from our brand discovery meetings.
- We provided guidelines on how to use all logo options on the brand style guide.
Responsive Logo Design
We created a logo system that can speak to multiple audiences and authentically represent the Change Center.
Website Overhaul
The Change’s Center website was long overdue for a revolution. The old website lacked in functionality, user friendly navigation, responsiveness and it did not do justice to the brand.
We worked together to ensure that the website was not only responsive but that it honored the identity of the brand and its users.
