SEATTLE AUDUBON SOCIETY
Bird is a verb. This rebrand for Seattle Audubon Society aimed to preserve the heritage of the organization while carrying the legacy into today and future Accessibility for a wider range of audiences was a key factor in the brand application — a modular system that translates to a variety of deliverables. Geometric graphics, a balanced color palette, and clear typography work together to present a friendly, timeless image for Seattle Audubon Society.
Project Duration - 12w
In Full Collaboration - Joe Loughlen
Roles
— Visual Designer
— Web Designer
— Copywriter
Tools
— Adobe InDesign
— Adobe Illustrator
— Adobe Photoshop
— Adobe After Effects
— Digital Photography
— Figma
Skills
— R&D
— Branding
— Layout
— Typography
— Motion Graphics
Summary of Research
Seattle Audubon is a non-profit environmental organization that leads their community in appreciating, understanding, and protecting birds and their natural habitats. Since 1916, members and volunteers have continually worked for the protection, restoration and preservation of natural habitat for birds and other wildlife. Their years of experience have never been more important than today, as the growth in the Seattle region stresses many habitats and their inhabitants.
Seattle Audubon currently has a baseline of ~500 participant volunteers and offers a wide variety of programming. The Seattle Audubon Nature Shop sells bird and nature-related merchandise, providing essential funding for the activities and programs of Seattle Audubon. Seattle Audubon volunteers provide more than 30,000 hours annually in service to the region’s birds and their environment.
Volunteer roles include board members, field trip leaders, Nature Shops assistants, committee members, citizen scientists, and coordinators of in-school education programs. Their members and volunteers skew older; adults who are avian enthusiasts and/or citizen scientists. They have at least a little leisure time to devote to birdwatching, which implies some level of financial security. See more research here
Branding Process
In order to discern the qualities that Seattle Audubon Society embodies most, our team engaged in an in depth branding exercise. We gathered images that we felt aligned with the brand and associated words with each image, generating a set of defining adjectives.
We then organized and pared down the images and generated words in order to clarify the characteristics of Seattle Audubon’s brand voice. The content and insight generated in this exercise helped to inform early design decisions and define tone of voice for copywriting elements.
Brand Mission
Since 1916, Seattle Audubon Society has advocated for conservation and the local community while fostering appreciation of birds and their habitats.
Brand Promise
We believe that by advocating for birds and their habitats, we are also advocating for ourselves and our city. Seattle Audubon Society provides quality educational programming and birding events for all ages, and our Nature Shop offers tools and resources for every level of bird enthusiast. We foster a friendly, communal atmosphere for volunteers and patrons alike. Join us in appreciating and learning about Seattle’s birds, and together we can change our world for the better.
Brand Positioning
For people interested in birds and the environment, Seattle Audubon Society is Washington’s largest community of birders, offering resources and tools, citizen science opportunities, and educational programming for all ages.
Concept Board
The branding exercise helped us to define the key characteristics of Seattle Audubon Society as knowledgeable, communal, and dedicated. We then generated a set of images that we felt embodied each of these characteristics.
Discerning Qualities
After merging and refining these image sets we identified key characteristics we wanted to bring to our rebrand. Some of these include color blocking, structured typography, flat illustration, and dynamic photography. This collection of images provided reference as well as served as the jumping off point for early logo iterations.
The Spirit of Audubon
While refining these images, it was important that they showed a full breadth of how Audubon engages with the world while still representing an appropriate visual tone. We developed a brand tagline for this concept board — “Know More, See More, Do More”. We felt it aligned closely enough with the values of Audubon that it needed to be included as a component of the branding system.
Typography and Color
Logo
Taking inspiration from elements of the concept board, we developed a logo for Seattle Audubon Society that carries over the presentation of their designated bird, a Double Crested Cormorant, who we lovingly named Rupert. The ring encircling the bird defines the positive and negative space, and reverently nods to the history and legacy of Seattle Audubon Society.
Static
The logo is built exclusively from circles of corresponding ratios, which imparts a sense of stability. Such a graphic mark was easy to translate to a variety of deliverables, and helped to inform geometry that would appear in print collateral pieces.
In Motion
As part of revitalizing Seattle Audubon’s digital presence, we created an animated version of the logo. This version of the logo would likely appear on the landing page as a loading graphic, on social media posts, and as an element of digital advertisements.
Print Systems
Since Seattle Audubon is a nonprofit with limited resources, it was important to consider how the print system could better serve the organization. Use of a single color on printed deliverables helps to keep costs down, and creates a consistent, identifiable look that can be varied in any of the brand colors. Templatized letterhead and business cards makes creating pieces for new employees easy. Technical deliverables draw on pre-existing resources like BirdWeb which Seattle Audubon maintains.
Modular Components
Each print deliverable is composed of several modular components, This system allows the organization to adapt this system across future campaigns easily. Developing alternate layouts, taglines, and content is straightforward, and could be executed by an in-house employee rather than a contract designer.
Color Application
A key component of this branding system is a balanced color palette that translates well from print to digital deliverables. By working from Pantone colors in the RGB Safe Book, we were able to maintain continuity easily. Colors can be easily varied across pieces, and provide easy differentiation without the need to re-design.
A major aspect of this project was redesigning the information architecture of the Seattle Audubon website (see full diagram here). It acts as the main funnel for donations as well as the platform where users find information and events. The website features dynamic content fields to engage repeat users, and departs from the fragmentation that the current site faces. Content on this page is geared towards narrative storytelling, email capture and event signup, and encouraging click-through to the donation page.
Next Steps…
We hope to continue developing deliverables within this system by creating additional graphics, developing copywriting, and expanding the digital footprint of Seattle Audubon’s brand.