The Problem
The stakeholders at Diverse BookFinder enjoyed the colorful branding that they had, but thought that it was too childish and didn't appeal to their new audience. There were many accessibility issues in their branding that had to be addressed, such as their colors and text sizing not meeting web accessibility standards.
Goals:
Improve color accessibility
Shift to more mature visual language to include middle- and high-school audiences
Maintain whimsical, colorful visual language
Iteration
Our approach involved multiple rounds of drafting iterations with the stakeholders, where we carefully considered elements such as color, symbolism, and composition. From an initial pool of over forty sketches, we refined our designs through each iteration until we narrowed it down to two strong contenders.
The Logo
We created our final branding toolkit, including the logo, the iconography, the colors, and other colorful assets. After thoughtful consideration, we ultimately decided to go with a block letter logo. Its versatile design allows it to be used independently or paired with text, making it the ideal choice from our diverse range of applications.
The Colors
We chose an ambitious palette of colors to reflect both the audience and the diversity of the brand. Each color is web-accessible on both a white background and an off-black background, allowing a fool-proof way for anyone with the brand toolkit to make an accessible, brand-approved piece of media.
Illustrative Iconography
We created four icons to demonstrate the four main functionalities of Diverse BookFinder. They are more illustrative than traditional icons to be more appealing to young audiences and being more engaging when scaled up on the website homepage.
Branding Package
We created a 70-page master booklet that describes copy information, branding information, and the approved methods of displaying the brand we created. It combines their previous documentation of various accessibility standards with our own branding vision to create an in-depth exploration of how the brand will expand over time.
Scroll through the brand guideline here.
Impact
Diverse BookFinder has implemented our branding and successfully expanded their audience. I continued to work with them to incorporate the branding into their website: Library Database Website.