Storytelling through Visual Identity
When your organization is grounded in purposeful connection, your branding should reflect that. And if your logo can tell that story in and of itself, you’ve got a great jumping off point for the rest of your brand materials.
That was the goal for the DoGooders logo.
The DoGooders movement highlights the best of both the nonprofit and for-profit communities using a unique, repetitive system of giving.
The movement starts when a Giver Company gives a gift to a member of a local nonprofit (a DoGooder) as a way of highlighting their service to the community. The DoGooder posts a photo of themselves with the gift to social media and to the DoGooders website, and then nominates another DoGooder to receive a gift in the chain.
Each time a Giver company joins and gives a gift to a DoGooder, a new chain is started. The result is a series of ongoing chains of DoGooders who are being recognized for their selflessness by Givers. This system simultaneously changes negative perceptions of capitalism, encourages acts of giving, and highlights local nonprofits.
The Inspiration
The DoGooders movement highlights the best of both the nonprofit and for-profit communities using a unique, repetitive system of giving.
The movement starts when a Giver Company gives a gift to a member of a local nonprofit (a DoGooder) as a way of highlighting their service to the community. The DoGooder posts a photo of themselves with the gift to social media and to the DoGooders website, and then nominates another DoGooder to receive a gift in the chain.
Each time a Giver company joins and gives a gift to a DoGooder, a new chain is started. The result is a series of ongoing chains of DoGooders who are being recognized by Givers.
The Creative Process
Logo design can get messy before it gets good and simple. Sometimes the only way to get simple is to get messy, and then extract a small, unique unit from the chaos.
The process began with a moodboard to solidify colors and to get a feel for the visual preferences of the client. This resulted in a vibrant color palette inspired by an Arizona sunset.
The logo itself started with a brainstorm and a few pages of thumbnail sketches to flush out ideas. It was important to our designer that the logo mark hold a deeper meaning beyond just symbolizing a gift. This concern was expressed by the client as well, who wanted to avoid symbols that seemed obvious. DoGooders has too much thought and heart behind it to be represented by something generic.
Some possible marks were inspired by artistic combinations of the letters D and G, with subtle hints at a gift. Other options were based on the idea of arrows (extracted from the old logo) or infinity symbols.
Because the DoGooders movement started here in Arizona, another idea included a subtle nod to the state in the use of geometric shapes. These shapes also represented the Do Gooders connecting in ongoing chains.
While this worked great as a pattern or graphic, it was too busy for a logo, and it felt like a dead end. It’s great when you have a logo that can be pushed into a whole identity system, but it needs to be able to stand alone as a logo, first.
Thankfully it wasn’t a dead end. After pushing the design through multiple revisions, our designer was able to simplify the chain logo down to a single unit, while still conveying the ideas of continuity and movement.
The resulting logo mark is composed of 3 pieces that demonstrate how the DoGooders program forms connections.
The circles represent two of the Do Gooders in the chain, while the middle arrow that connects them continues in two directions, symbolizing the continuity of the chains.
The logo pieces can also be duplicated to form a pattern symbolizing the chains of Do Gooders.
