History, Continuity, Forward Thinking
COLLABORATION COUNTS
The Background
I was recently invited to collaborate with SallyAnn Gray at Verve Digital Marketing by providing a brand refresh and custom landing page layout for her client the League of Women Voters of Maine (LWVME). LWVME was preparing for a centential celebration and wanted a fresh landing page to support membership and volunteerism drives. They also wanted a defined brand guide and some additional resources like updated iconography to take them into the future and lend consistency to their communications. SallyAnn was our project manager, once again providing direction and facilitating communication. This project was truly exciting and the LWVME project team were fully involved in the brand definition process.
We started with a brand interview so I could get a feel for the group’s visual preferences but also what messages or metaphors we needed to convey visually. From this interview I pulled out several themes and initial visual concepts and work them into visual story boards. These are a collection of images, colors and sometimes type, that all have a specific theme or flavor. I usually start with several and these get narrowed down to the essential visuals. We defined type and colors that tied in to both the existing red, white and blue of the logo and the purple and gold from the League’s early history.
Defining the Brand
Out of this initial brand work I created the brand guidelines booklet. This definition not only provided the framework for the web design, the LWVME now has a tool to provide any other vendors or internal team members and volunteers who may be working with their brand in the future. I also provided a set of stock photos and custom icons and badges for use across their materials and website.
Web Layouts and Results!
Finally, we dug into the landing page layout. Using my new favorite layout planning tool, Adobe XD. It’s a great tool for conveying design themes and layout to a developer, but still allowing for flexibility on the live site. The developer at LWVME did a terrific job of executing on the design.
The project team at the LWVME are very happy with the results and met their deadline to have the landing page live in time for the centential activities. Visual themes include diverse people engaged in discussion, planning and activism, with color schemes and styles that line up with the national LWV branding, but with a distinctive Maine flavor and personalized with local staff and volunteers.
Go Team!
Learn more about my fabulous collaborator, SallyAnn Gray of Verve Digital Marketing!
