Work
After seeing how our web designs were coming together, the RAND team realized that they needed to update their logo to match the polished, sophisticated, modern tone of our new designs. Inspired and informed by the website designs, the internal RAND team updated the organization’s logo to better position them as a cutting edge thought leader.
Through a series of workshops and design collaboration sessions, Teal and RAND updated the core color palette for the organization. These colors were selected to give a more modern feel that shows RAND’s interest beyond “just” security and conflict-related topics.
We also grouped select colors into “themes” to give select content either a more serious or light-hearted tone, as the design team sees fit.
Together, Teal and RAND selected a font mix that gives a lot of flexibility: serif, sans, and monospace. This versatility can also be applied when considering the treatment of different research or commentary articles. Whether the content is data-heavy, visual-forward, or text-based opinion, the RAND team has the right font at their disposal.
The core of our brand expansion work with RAND was to pull together many of their disconnected brand elements to bring consistency and a cohesive feel to the RAND visual identity. One of the ways we helped the RAND team visualize their new identity was to create a series of moodboards that show some of the possible variations and applications of the updated brand.
We created a series of formulas so the RAND internal team can build compelling images that align with the main message they want to convey. These images are built with a series of visual elements that can be mixed and matched to provide a variety of image treatments across the website.
We created an extensive set of social image templates for the social team at RAND to use to build a cohesive look and feel across social platforms. The variations in styling and images help the RAND team maintain a feeling of freshness and dynamism, while still adhering to their brand standards.
We also worked closely with the RAND team to identify their needs, and suggested some changes in their workflow so they can be more efficient in their image production.
The new brand identity grew out of the website redesign project, so the new brand is clearly infused throughout the new rand.org. Through a mix of colors, fonts, image treatments, and textures, we created a brand system that helps the internal RAND team clearly communicate their brand promise in a consistent and cohesive way.
To ensure that RAND’s in-house designers had all the tools they needed to bring the new brand to life across all of their communication channels, Teal developed a living brand guide that considers all expressions of the new brand.
In this document, we established base guidelines for core elements like fonts, color palette and visual style, but we also included references so that in the future, RAND’s designers can build brand images, expand the brand into print and social media.
It's no surprise that a renowned, 75-year-old think tank would pursue a robust learning phase ahead of a brand refresh and website redesign.
The part where we ask you to cough up your email. So we can discuss all the amazing things we’re gonna do together. No pressure. Really.