We leave for Spain in two weeks so I have a few open projects I am working on finishing before we leave the country for 16 days!
I started freelancing with Creative Distillery, a small branding firm in Jackson, MS. They found me on LinkedIn and had me come in and we hit it off immediately. They had me jump right in on a project to get it to the client before we leave.
The Resilience Foundation is a new nonprofit that will provide care packages to survivors of sexual assault. The care packages will be distributed at hospitals by social workers, and include useful items that can help make a survivor feel comfortable after undergoing trauma of an attack and the medical and police examination to collect evidence to catch the assailant.
After talking with them awhile about the project and the design, it came down to using the letter R as the main component as is the color purple, which is the color ribbon for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Darren liked the idea of a butterfly because the survivor is irreversibly changed after a sexual assault but can still emerge as something beautiful. The other idea he had is some kind of shield that plays more with the resilience name.
So I worked on a lot of different designs, put together mood boards, did some handlettering and illustrations and came up with these ideas:
The first two concepts are similar, hand lettered cursive, continuous lines, working with the butterfly icon, but not to the point where it over powers the word resilience. The R is the main focus for both of them, you can see it working alone and in the whole. This is the most playful concept of the group, very soft and kind of effortless in tying in the butterfly. They have a sense of organic, wholesome, into the wild feeling.
For the Second Idea:
The first concept plays off the rigid structure of our bodies, our veins, the tissue, the idea that our bodies are meant to heal themselves and there are so many things that go to work on the inside when something is wrong. This abstract butterfly enclosed in a home like structure. The feeling is flexible but the structure is strong and safe to stay in, like our bodies.
The second concept its a very simple, to the point, more corporate approach, but it still has a feeling of softness with the angling of the letters. The butterfly playing the negative space and the positive space of the R, that can work alone or inline with the others. This concept has more of a formation to it but still has a major sense of softness to it.
For the third idea:
The Shield icon I felt was the hardest one for me to work with in the regard of keeping it soft, feminine and inviting. But I can see some of the other concepts even being contained in a shield like structure so I don't think the concept is too far away. I instantly thought of Joan of Arc when trying to tie in the femininity of the project to the shield. I think these are the least developed but I didn't want to spend too much of my time getting down to the details just yet. I imagine more ornamentals, and playing with flowers and structure, playing with symmetry and a little bit of the folk art style, which I started in the first concept, loose but symmetrical.
The last concept:
This concept is a real play on stained glass. If you look up stained glass and the purpose and history behind it you will read; the purpose of a stained glass window is not to allow those within a building to see the world outside or even primarily to admit light but rather control it. they must support themselves and the structure it contains, resist wind and rain. I kept with the butterfly theme here especially because their wings have a stained glass effect to them, holding together this insanely sensitive material full of color and life.
I used an old style serif font, I really kept seeing the R take on the butterfly wing, they have the same shape and I knew it could really be a distinct R and stay away from the more ethereal playfulness of the first concept. I used a lot of lines in the mood board because I think this concept is hard to see in real life design and I wanted to show you how many different ways it can be used.
The first concept is the art work being contained in the R, making the R stand out. The second is actually taking the artwork out of the art and flipping it to construct a more abstract symmetrical butterfly.
Let me know your thoughts on each design?! I'd love some feedback