For my capstone project, I had the great pleasure of working with the Irene Wortham Center to create a brand for the 20th Annual Golf Tournament. The branding goal was to raise $50,000 to begin pre-construction efforts on a new Early Learning Center, their daycare for children ages 6 weeks to 6 years.
The project included a new brand with a logo, letterhead, business cards, advertisements, brochure and website. The letterhead and business card are for the IWC as a whole; the other materials are specific to the 20th Annual Golf Tournament. The project proposal can be read here and the branding booklet can be read here.
The project started by performing research into the Irene Wortham Center, its target audience and its competition, as well as learning more about charity golf tournaments, how they work and who they appeal to. I used this information, along with active collaboration with the IWC’s Development & Marketing Director, to come up with a branding strategy to attract more sponsors and players to the 2020 tournament.
Brand
The brand strategy was to create and apply a unified brand consistently across 20th Annual Golf Tournament promotional materials, such as ads, website and brochure. The brand visuals were based off the IWC brand, making particular use of three colors (dark blue, light blue, light orange) and a colored shape (light blue, usually a line or rectangle), used consistently throughout. Like the IWC, the golf tournament was intended to feel empowering, uplifting and friendly. The target audience was identified as business owners, upper-class professionals and their spouses.
Identity
The identity is based on a brand visual system comprised of 3 primary colors (dark blue, light blue, light orange) and 4 secondary colors (blue, orange, yellow, green). It also uses two main symbols: a light blue rectangle (also interpreted as a square, line or other shape) and butterflies (for IWC items and the logo).
The fonts used the most are Arboria and Transat. Transat pairs with the IWC logo and Arboria is an effective complementary font. The former is used for body text and the latter is used for headings. Exceptions included:
- Arboria Black is used for headings in the brochure, to improve legibility in the small form factor.
- Arzachel is used for some headings in advertisements to tie back to the logo, which also uses it.
- Clarendon Wide Stencil is used to display the tournament year on the logo.
- Roboto is used for all text on the website, to avoid difficulties with Adobe TypeKit.
Initial concepts for the logo took inspiration from samples provided by the client and from logos for other sporting events. Some early concepts included open hands and the logos of Blue Ridge Pharmacy and Sona Clinic, elements which were discarded in the final logo.
After some feedback with the client, rough versions of the final logo were produced that narrowed the visual elements down to reduce clutter. The goals of the revisions were to be usable on physical items such as water bottles and to emphasize the Irene Wortham Center’s branding.
The center logo, color scheme, butterflies and other visual elements connect the logo to the Irene Wortham Center, while the golf ball, hills and banner clearly communicate the tournament.
The shape of the logo also conveys the Irene Wortham Center’s values of professionalism, respect and caring. The logo is open and free, embracing diversity within a solid foundation, much like a building. The colors also connect it to fun and innocence, communicating the Early Learning Center.
The logo uses the Irene Wortham Center brand colors (see above). It also uses three additional colors from the Sona Clinic logo.
The logo may only be put inside of a square shape, but can have rounded corners. Whitespace is the length of a butterfly. The logo is color-only – no grayscale or black & white.
Although a letterhead and business card were not needed for the golf tournament, concepts were developed for the Irene Wortham Center.
Although a letterhead and business card were not needed for the golf tournament, concepts were developed for the Irene Wortham Center.
The letterhead is designed to be printed in-house to cut costs. There are wide margins and no full-bleed graphics. Arboria font for all text, colored blue to contrast it with printed content. The Irene Wortham Center’s branding is evident in the logo, background butterflies and the company’s tagline.
The business card is a one-sided design that pairs Arboria with Transat Light for a visually-striking design that balances clean display of content with room to print long strings of text as needed.
Marketing
A Facebook profile banner was created to promote the golf tournament on the Irene Wortham Center Facebook page. Banner specs followed the official profile banner guidelines. The goal of the banner is to get viewers to check out the tournament website.
After multiple iterations refining the messaging, call to action and visuals, the final Facebook banner was completed and output according to Facebook’s official technical guidelines. The goal is to convert Facebook users by bringing their attention to the existence of the tournament and what it’s for.
A promotional flyer was created to hand out at networking events to bring attention to the golf tournament. Some early concepts included tear-offs with the event URL, and early versions of the logo can be seen from before rendering issues had been ironed out.
The flyer design was coordinated with the banner to create a consistent design style across promotional materials. The purpose of the flyer was to hand it out at networking events with the goal of persuading businesses and individuals to participate. The hierarchy of the flyer emphasizes the Early Learning Center and the goals of the tournament, with special attention given to the sponsors.
An informational brochure was created to send out to previous sponsors with updated information on this year’s golf tournament as a marketing piece to maintain repeat sponsors. The goal of the brochure is to inform the reader on how this year’s tournament benefits the Early Learning Center.
The brochure (link goes to the PDF) is a letter-size bifold brochure, meaning that each page is 5.5×8.5” inches. The brochure has no full-bleed images, to allow it to be printed in-house. The purpose of the brochure is two-fold: to reiterate the importance of the Irene Wortham Center and its Early Learning Center, and to provide updated details on the golf tournament, such as the fees, prizes and location.
Arboria Black replaces Transat Light as the heading typeface to improve the legibility of text within the small form factor. The brochure makes consistent use of brand colors through application to typographical and graphical elements, such as headings, calls to action and background shapes. Images do not have an overlay, as a way to simplify printing and maintain a hierarchy of focus on the brochure’s text.
Website
A website was planned (link goes to PDF of brief) with the goal of facilitating event registration and donations. To drive conversion, the tournament website would also serve as a digital equivalent of the brochure, providing more detailed information on the tournament, such as the venue itself and the sponsors. Further information on the Irene Wortham Center and its programs, especially the Early Learning Center, would also be available, with calls to register or donate.
The final website (link goes to live site) came out very close to the revised mockups, with a few tweaks to account for technical limitations or to improve the design in small ways based on feedback. It follows the brand color and symbol guidelines used in the other designs.
The goal of the site is to raise $50,000 for the Early Learning Center. It does this by:
- Registration button in the header appearing on all pages, plus registration buttons on most other pages. Plugin provides registration functionality within the site.
- Call for non-registration donations on multiple pages, with a plugin providing donation functionality within the site. A popup also displays calling for donations.
- Information on the Irene Wortham Center and Early Learning Center, with images of children playing and learning, to provide an emotional hook for users.
- Information on the event fees, date, location, etc., complete with a slider on the services and amenities of the Mount Mitchel Golf Club and the surrounding town of Burnsville.
- Contact form and contact info for IWC to learn more about the tournament.
