Branding the Creative Capital
City of Providence
brand development
One of my primary responsibilities working for the City of Providence is maintaining the current brand identity while developing new assets to reflect the overall brand. I've designed for a multitude of different areas within the city, including departments, initiatives, events, locations, services and more. Each logo reflects the city brand with font, color choices, layout design or repeating iconography while also each having a unique identity.
In this section, I showcased a few of my favorite examples on top and have gone into more detail with a select few continuing further down.
African American Ambassador Group &
Truth, Reconciliation, Reparations Logos
Mayor Jorge Elorza began meeting regularly with the African American Ambassador Group (AAAG) in May 2020 to discuss the disproportionate number of African Americans impacted by COVID-19. The AAAG protects, uplifts, celebrates, and empowers the African American community in Providence by developing and advancing City of Providence policies that dismantle oppressive systems and extinguish racial, social, and economic equity gaps for African Americans. The Truth-Telling, Reconciliation & Reparations Subgroup supports the mission of the African American Ambassadors Group by uncovering the truth of past and present wrongs and their impact on African and Indigenous peoples.
I began my work for this group directly through the Mayor's Office, from creating the AAAG brand design, developing a subgroup brand and to designing the majority of print and digital media greatly in part with the Communications team. Design work for the AAAG and TRR include but is not limited to all brand elements, flyers, posters, a tri--fold brochure, a report, social media graphics and so on.
Mayor's Coalition on Behavioral Health and Subgroup Logos
The Mission of the Mayor’s Coalition on Behavioral Health (MCBH) is to provide leadership, raise awareness and develop policy for the Mayor relating to health, wellness, and safety, including drug, alcohol, and tobacco prevention, across the lifespan.
This group originally established in 1987 as the Providence Substance Abuse Prevention Council, then formally formed by Executive Order #2003-05 (July 29, 2003), with a slight name change from Providence to the Mayor's Substance Abuse Prevention Council thereafter. In 2020, this group’s name was finally updated to the Mayor’s Coalition on Behavioral Health to be more reflective of current language/vocabulary choices related to substance use disorders and prevention. With name changes came more design iterations.
Instead of the red, orange black emblem it once was for MSAPC, I changed the design direction to something more toned down, using less vibrant blues and simpler iconography. Both the MCBH and subcommittee logos feature the primary P logo with silhouettes of heads obscured into it, to signify the mind, mental health and humanity.
Beyond designing the logos and branding, I've worked on flyers, a resource guide, a tradeshow tablecloth and other small media for the MCBH.
Eat, Play, Learn Logo Rebrand
EAT PLAY LEARN PVD is a nationally recognized initiative that provides children and families of Providence with access to healthy food, outdoor play, skill-building, and creative engagement all summer long! Through this program, all Providence youth 18 years of age and under are eligible to receive free summer meals and access to play opportunities at parks, pools and recreation programs. Youth are also offered summer employment opportunities through EPL to acquire the skills they need to succeed later in life.
I had the opportunity to give the EPL brand design refresh as one of my first branding projects in my position in the Mayor's Office. I chose to keep the design similar to keep the familiarity of the brand. I reduced the amount of different font weights used, simplified colors used and subbed the geometric sun design for a simpler hand-drawn design to give it a more youthful feel to it.
Beyond the brand design, I had plenty of opportunities to expand on the EPL brand from plenty of flyers, posters, banners, to social media graphics, infographics and more.
The Providence Rink
and Roller Disco Logos
The Providence Rink design was another refresh project. This project started from a generic graphic made for social media that had a similar skyline illustration to the previous Providence Rink logo design. I was asked to refresh their logo using a similar design as the existing illustration. I kept the font choice the same, but stylistically, I took the dimensions of the skyline I had, kept some of the detailing and applied it to the existing lockup of their logo. I also adjusted the colors slightly to reflect the overall City of Providence brand.
I have had the pleasure of using this branding in flyers, posters, dasher ad banners, print ads and other similar media. Through the Providence Rink, I also aided in designing their City Center logo, transitioning from Alex and Ani City Center to the BankNewport City Center, primarily going off of BankNewport's branding.
Another fun opportunity to design for the Providence Rink was creating a brand design, some simple graphics and t-shirt for the rink's "Roller Disco," an event hosted by the Providence Rink in the summers.