Democratic Project
Industry: Education/Non-profit
Services: Brand Design, Collaterals
* Project completed under Noi Creative Studio
Creating the visual identity for Democratic Knowledge Project, a civic education provider based at Harvard University.
The brief.
The Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP) is a K-16 civic education provider based at Harvard University. They offer curriculum development resources, professional development workshops for educators, and assessment tools and services—all in support of education for democracy. DKP co-designed an open source year-long Grade 8 Civics Course with the Cambridge Public School District which is open source and available to all Massachusetts educators as of September 2019.
They needed to build their brand identity which would position themselves as a leading provider who disseminates the knowledge and skills for a healthy democratic life.
Initial mindmapping and sketching showing the internal design process. These were followed by visual inspiration boards and first round of logos.
The design solution.
The final logo concept was a typography-based solution, inspired by the vernacular or protest posters and signage. The combination of the lettermark with the wordmark centers around the name thus conveying a sense of confidence, history and stability. The DKP lettermark was created using a customized weight and letters of Whitney Font - a humanist, friendly and highly readable sans serif font. The letter p is purposely lengthened to express verticality, a sense of action and boldness.
The DKP lettermark was created using a customized weight and letters of Whitney Font - a humanist, friendly and highly readable sans serif font.
Purple was chosen as the main color for the brand as metaphor for its symbolic reflection of bi-partisan unity.
Brand patterns and custom illustrations were created to enrich the brand visual language.
