For a decade, I’ve helped people and organizations articulate, shape, and share their brands. My approach is heavy on research and investigation, process-oriented, and focused on making sure every detail serves the big picture. Here are examples of branding projects I’ve led:

FROM CLIPART TO CUSTOM
The Michigan Health Endowment Fund was established in 2013, but it was two years before the foundation hired its first staff. When I came on board in 2016, the logo was a placeholder and the organization had no visual identity. Working with Zoyes Creative Group, I led staff and board through a branding process befitting of an organization granting tens of millions of dollars annually. Beyond a new logo, this process provided an identity guide that continues to define the Health Fund’s aesthetic five years later.

The original Health Fund logo was basic, literal, and meant to be temporary. There was no developed aesthetic beyond the logo.

The new logo balances professionalism with accessibility, evoking trustworthiness and friendliness.

Proposed collateral, designed by Zoyes Creative Group

Click any image for a larger view and a more detailed explanation

REGIONAL REBRAND

After a year of research and planning, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance was ready to change its mission and brand from a service-provider for cities to a regional policy advocacy organization. I led the rebranding process, which included not only a completely new logo and visual brand but a new identity entirely.

Our new name, Metro Matters, provided the balance between expert and friendly that we were already known for. The logo complements the name by providing a strong visual association with the metro Detroit region, and evokes unity with the suburbs hugging the city of Detroit. Along with a familiar color palette, this helped retain some association with our previous brand that made stakeholders feel comfortable making the change.

The new logo looks gorgeous up close, and we used the back of our business cards to take advantage of this in a major way.

We envisioned the ‘real’ logo as the mark itself, with the hopes that after establishing recognition we could play with color and alignment for branding specific programs, projects, and publications. In the past, the Suburbs Alliance tended to create new and totally separate brands for each new initiative, and the new logo prepared the organization to move forward with one cohesive identity.

Even without drastically changing the color scheme, Metro Matters was able to immediately use a more neutral one-color version of the logo to striking visual effect on a variety of materials. Pictured here is a Thanksgiving Day social media image.

Click any image for a larger view and more detailed explanation.

After a year of research and planning, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance was ready to change its mission and brand from a service-provider for cities to a regional policy advocacy organization. (Read more about the transition here.) Working with stakeholders, vendors, and designers, I led the rebranding process, which included not only a new visual brand but also an entirely new identity.

The organization is now known as Metro Matters, and the switch has garnered loads of positive feedback from longtime partners and supporters as well as new audiences. Metro Matters’ visual brand is an evolution of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance rather than a complete departure, an intentional approach that pays homage to its roots (and provided comfort to stakeholders who had been there since the beginning).

BRANDING A TRANSIT COALITION

In 2015, a handful of nonprofits received funding to build a coalition in support of expanded transit in metro Detroit. To market the Momentum coalition and support membership growth, the group needed a logo that was simple but useful and communicative. I spearheaded the design process, working with Zoyes Creative Group to develop a solution that satisfied the entire coalition. Since having numerous organizations creating pieces under one brand can result in less-than-perfect applications, we also created a style guide to ensure proper use of the mark.

Here’s the logo in action, providing the basis for a slide deck theme: