For a Visual Communications course, we were assigned to refresh the brand identity of a chosen client. In order to do this, we were asked to design several elements of a visual system such as a logo, a color palette, type hierarchy and imagery. My chosen client was PFLAG Seattle.
PFLAG is a national organization that connects parents, families, and allies with members of the LGBTQ+ community. According to their website, PFLAG Seattle's vision is "to build on a foundation of loving families united with LGBTQ people and allies who support one another, and to educate ourselves and our communities to speak up as advocates until all hearts and minds respect, value and affirm LGBTQ people." My goals for this rebrand were to emphasize the emotive, revealing and connecting characteristics of the PFLAG brand.
my role
Solo visual designer and brand strategist. Received weekly feedback from course mates and professor.
Timeline
January 2021 - March 2022
tools
Figma, Adobe XD
To begin, I decided to design my layouts around a 16-column grid. Each column was around 50px wide while the gutters were 10px wide. This layout allowed for more elements to be positioned beside each other to evoke the idea of connectedness. All elements with content (like text, images, buttons) got a 1-column padding on each side while anchor elements bled into the margins of the page.
I based my color palette off colors included in my moodboard. The goal of my selection was to use colors in the LGBTQ+ flag without making the website look too “colorful”. I chose variations of purple to contrast the warm notes of orange and yellow on the site. I identified "dominant colors" which were set to exist in non-text elements such as buttons, navigation links, the logo, etc. For text elements, I defined a preset "text color. For additional illustrative purposes, I created a color gradient with the dominant colors in the color palette on a horizontal gradient. The color gradient was specifically created for use in the logo, highlighted navigation links, and pull quotes on the website.
For PFLAG's new logo, I chose to continue on the theme of referencing the LGBTQ+ flag (as adopted in my color palette). I decided on a wordmark-container logo in the preset color gradient. I also created a secondary logo that inverted the color settings so that the word mark existed in white font color on an overlay of the color gradient.
I created four preset elements to be used across layouts. These elements could have text overlay on them, serve as buttons or simply exist for decorative purposes. They could also be placed in different positions and resized as needed.
As a design guideline, I set elements within specific sections to have the same color to create a consistent theme across the visual system.
I built the chosen typography and hierarchy using the National font family. I chose this humanist sans-serif typeface because of its simple, balanced nature. This allows for readability and gives
the website a subtly serious character.
The final selections I had to make for this visual re-design was deciding what the imagery would look like on the website. For PFLAG, I wanted to have images that portrayed people around each other and carrying out activities. These images would speak to the design goal of “connecting” that I set at the beginning of the project. I edited the images to be vibrant with high color saturation to match the set color palette. I also made sure to select images with colors in the color palette. Some examples of the images I selected are shown on the right
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