To come together as a team of people who had never met and create an impactful brand in a single weekend that would empower a worthy cause and positively impact a community. Could we build a brand that the young people of Memphis would buy into?
Through the intensely collaborative sprint approach of Good Measure, our creative design team gave Grounded a custom identity befitting the important mission of improving the young lives of trauma victims.
Branding team
icon design
infographic design
presentation design
Good Measure is a volunteer organization that brings together top creative talent across multiple disciplines to launch brands for worthy causes and organizations making a positive impact in the world. Participants come together as strangers, unite around a single project, and leave as friends joined by a shared experience of love and support. This collaborative magic allows the team to do in just 72 hours what a normal agency would accomplish in several months.
Together we spent a weekend - a three-day, focused sprint - to help the non-profit Grounded create a website, communications platform, and video to support their work addressing youth violence. No personal agendas - we were simply driven by the need and the work.
Grounded is an organization founded by artists and storytellers who know the streets of Memphis, Tennessee in a real and intimate way, and are seeking to make an impact by building teams of student collaborators to address issues of violence and trauma among youth in the community. Grounded interrupts cycles of harm with art, dance, mindfulness, and more. As a result of this weekend sprint, Grounded has more than just a full brand kit (including website strategy, design, copywriting, and video) - they have the momentum that only a powerful, dynamic brand can bring.
Our sprint did not afford us the luxury of time. Good Measure volunteers were introduced to the client, given a brief, and then quickly divided into separate teams based on their skillsets and disciplines: strategists and copywriters headed to their corner, videographers and photographers found a quiet room to huddle in, and designers split themselves between web and branding efforts. Once the shuffle was complete, it was off to the races.
As a part of the branding team, I collaborated closely with other participants to create brand elements including logo design, icons, color palette, a pitch deck, media kit, infographics, and more. Together we checked our egos, collaborated in a highly energized environment, and resolved conflicts in real time. The transformative power of working in one room where the only thing that exists is the problem being solved created a nimble, creative atmosphere unlike any I’ve previously experienced.
We wanted a logo that included a symbol that is simple enough to easily be drawn in crayon, and looks great on a t-shirt so that our artists and mentors would be eager to wear it. We landed on a bold and angular dissected uppercase “G,” featuring a prominent arrow that represents transformation, movement, and elevation. We paired the symbol with a thick, low-profile sans serif wordmark, that is confident enough to stand on its own.
We were inspired by the stories we collected about the Memphis experience. We heard that the humidity in warm months causes a light mist that coats skin and makes folks look like they’re glistening. There are neon lights on Beale Street, and the sunset over the Mississippi River. The color palette is a vibrant nod to Memphis.
