Norwalk River Rowing Association (NRRA) was a 20-year-old nonprofit providing a wonderful service to the community in the very heart of Norwalk — but few people knew about them or even about the sport of rowing. When my daughter started rowing there, I witnessed how the NRRA coaches (and rowing itself) were having a profound and positive effect on the lives of their young athletes. So I volunteered to do their graphics.
Since NRRA’s only graphic asset was their logo, I bought a camera with a long lens and then attended regattas, practices, social events and meetings, bringing NRRA to life in photographs and creating an image library.
Working with the board, parents, club members and the enthusiastic coaching staff, we developed a photo-intense branding system that we applied to all their publications: business cards, annual reports, capital campaign materials, brochures, posters, handbooks, signage, event invitations, a river map, fliers, t-shirts — and even to the parents’ trailer.
And we figured out cost-effective ways (print and digital) to produce them. Results? Increased awareness, increased donations, club memberships, participation, and just plain fun.
Every spring, the Open Door Shelter hosts a themed gala and auction, its largest fundraising event of the year. Not only does it raise significant money for this nonprofit, this festive event also honors it donors, celebrates its volunteers and highlights its accomplishments. These “save the date” cards and invitations set the tone for the event and, more importantly, got people to attend.
The month of December is an important one in a fundraiser’s calendar, since that is the time people make tax-deductible contributions to nonprofits before the year-end deadline. This seasonal appeal uses images of birds at a feeder to highlight the plight of the homeless in winter and tug at the heartstrings of recipients — turning them into donors.
The Norwalk Early Childhood Council needed to present their 32-page, ground-breaking, data-intensive 5-year plan for improving the early childhood experience in Norwalk in a pleasing, readable and authoritative way. It had to be cost-effective to print and digitally downloadable as a PDF. And it also needed to be condensed into an executive summary that could fit onto one sheet of 11x17 paper.
We developed a color-coded system with a clean, open layout and lots of pictures of happy, healthy children — the little folks who would benefit most from this work. We took a picture of Norwalk City Hall for the back cover and developed an elegant executive summary format. This plan was disseminated around the state as an example of what early childhood councils in Connecticut were doing — with Norwalk seen as an innovative and effective leader in the field.
Mr. Holub had a problem: How do you get voters to turn out in an off-year local election and vote for him — while not spending a fortune? Develop a low-cost, targeted postcard with fresh, contemporary graphics that highlight only essential information — brief, persuasive and to the point. Choose a delivery date just a few days before the election and send it Every Door Direct Mail® (EDDM), where a mailing permit, mailing list and addressing are not needed, postage costs are low, and the postcard can be targeted to a tight geographic area. Results? Mr. Holub was elected.
Bryn Mawr College Crew was hosting the Seven Sisters Regatta, an annual DIII rowing competition that has been contested for nearly thirty years by teams from Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, Simmons and Bryn Mawr in late October. Tradition demanded a regatta t-shirt — in the host school’s colors — be given to all participants.
We created a unique design showing the BMC crew hoisting their 62-foot, 220-pound rowing shell under the watchful eyes of coach and coxswain, a reality of rowing life rarely depicted. And pictured on the back, these women were racing.
The results? A winner of a t-shirt that surprised and delighted regatta coaches and athletes (who already own at least a million regatta shirts) — and garnered respect for Bryn Mawr Crew’s creativity and smarts.
For winter training, the BMC crew captains followed up with a team shirt — one that would create a fierce desire to win in the upcoming spring racing season.
Pensacola Rowing Club (PRC) was a new nonprofit organization founded by three people — one of whom had previously coached at Norwalk River Rowing — and they needed a logo.
After assembling and reviewing a library of existing rowing club logos as visual reference, we talked about the things that made PRC unique: the physical geography of their water, the Florida location, the pelican mascot of Pensacola, a Florida color palette, and, of course, a lot about the sport of rowing, the nature of their club and their goals as an organization.
This logo design exploratory was the fruit of all these discussions and one of the steps in their logo development.
Launching a new small business brings with it a million tasks, not the least of which is naming the business, creating a logo and developing the branding.
And to have a successful special event, it is critical to create an identity system, starting with a logo lockup, and then developing a look and feel for the event that can be applied to all the promotional materials (including the inevitable t-shirts).
These logos were designed for friends’ new businesses and special events.
