the blue institute
Unifying the tide: How BLUE Institute's rebrand anchored six sub-brands with a cohesive identity
Brand Refresh
The Challenge
The BLUE Institute supports early-stage blue tech and blue economy startups through education, research, entrepreneurship and community engagement.
Judith Underwood, the co-founder of the BLUE Institute, was looking for a way to unify the organization’s various brand elements into a single identity system that would be flexible and scale as her organization grew. Altogether there were six sub brands under the parent brand of BLUE.
The existing family of logos had been designed internally and inconsistencies had also begun to creep into logos such as varying typefaces, inconsistent logo lockups, and derivatives of the logo mark (the seashell).
The Solution
The original BLUE Institute logo would be the template for all six associated brands. I kept the design of the seashell logo mark intact but revised the lettering to be more in line with the essence of the seashell. I found a typeface (Asap) with a similar condensed mono-weight look as the original lettering but with rounded corners and a softer feel to mimic the seashell, providing the whole logo a more unified look and feel.
The color palette would be the key to distinguishing the different sub brands at a glance. Blue is not the only color you find within the ocean. I sampled colors from a coral reef image with a wide variety of hues — some of which I selected as a primary brand color and sub brand colors. Each sub brand color would need to be bright enough to “pop” against the primary blue but also dark enough to stand on its own.
The anchors of the entire identity system are the seashell logo mark, the primary blue, and the BLUE word mark. As the parent organization is represented simply as BLUE. Each sub brand is represented by a different color, while the seashell, typography, and word mark remain consistent.
The Outcome
The final result is an identity system representing the entire universe of the BLUE brand. Each sub brand has multiple logo variations to accommodate different applications. The BLUE identity system provides a unique identity for each brand while maintaining a consistent look and feel across the whole.
“Justin worked with us to redesign and rebrand the logo family for the Blue Institute — brining together our mission, vision, and programming execution under one brand: BLUE. Justin is a master at his craft because he easily brings everything together in a succinct and visually engaging way.”
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