Religious Community for Reproductive Choice
Brand Building at 50 Years of Advocacy
The Challenge
After 5o years advocating for reproductive health, rights, and justice in religious communities the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) had undergone a name change and was ready to have their visual identity and messaging match their current positioning in the ecosystem.
They saw the evolution of their name as an opportunity to better express their modern role in their cause ecosystem as an organization focused on being a support system for religious and spiritual people.
The Outcome
The visual identity is bold, welcoming, and strong with a slight leaning into a feminine aesthetic. Paired with distinctive messaging, the overall brand is one of optimism, support, and inclusion.
Services
- Brand Strategy & Identity
- Marketing & Campaigns
Focus Areas
- Health & Human Services
- Social Equity & Justice
Identifying a Brand Building Strategy
Several elements that define the religion-oriented reproductive health, rights, and justice space became clear during our landscape analysis. Many are activist based, and most served a specific and limited audience. Part of our challenge was to present RCRC as more open and community based - no matter what a person’s spiritual beliefs.
It was important to their team to convey the idea that they are a resource for people of faith — a place to find credible information from a credible org organization. With the priority of helping them be easily recognized in the space, we were able to move forward with a new direction for both brand aesthetics and messaging.
Brand Identity & Design Systems
For the visual brand, we started with the icon and wordmark. The final design is crafted to feel welcoming, fresh, and modern while representing a credible organization. Their name contains a lot of words, and some long ones, to boot. It was clear that the name and icon needed to both have equal weight. The goal was to make the combination reflective of activism and be easily recognizable — almost like a stamp or wax seal.
The icon itself is designed to evoke spirituality, but in a neutral way. It hints at stained glass windows and details on church exteriors. The interwoven nature of the linework hints at things coming together. This overlap is symbolic of community. It leverages overlapping circles that symbolize diversity and convening faiths. The star shape in the center — formed by the curves — represents hope and peace.
The typefaces are a combination of a bold condensed Sans Serif font (Americane Condensed), with each word stacked, and a serif font, used only for the word “for” which is set off to the side (and smaller) with a decorative underline. This combination gives the logo a feeling of bold action, elegant sophistication, and visual balance.
Written Brand Expression
We developed a brand messaging system that consists of strong and clear statements. These are the foundational beliefs of the organization expressed succinctly and with a clear perspective that allows them to stand out in the religious and reproductive freedom issue area.
A Unifying Approach to Photography
When authentic RCRC images aren’t available, the brand system relies on stock photos of people, don’t feel overly posed, and have an optimistic aesthetic. To incorporate photos into the brand overall, images can be contained within any of the branded shapes (the lotus, the daisy, the starburst, or the pie shape). When desired, the background colors of the subject can be replaced with one of the brighter brand colors to add a fun and branded look and feel.
Scope of Work
Other
- Brand Strategy & Identity
- Marketing & Campaigns
