Oxfam Novib

Brand Experience

Inspiring youth to spark a change

Challenge

Create a compelling brand narrative and visual identity that mobilizes young Europeans to get involved in the fight against climate change.

Outcome

A captivating brand story and identity that encourages youngsters to take climate action into their own hands. The brand identity is supported by a comprehensive style guide containing visual design assets and brand guidelines.

Impact

The created concept was well-received by our audience and inspired them to “spark“ a change. We’re looking forward to seeing how it will be received by the wider public!

Spark

a change

Strategy

Oxfam Novib is an international non-profit organization with a strong mission: to make the world safer and fairer for everyone. This year, they joined the Climate Action by EU Citizens Delivers for Development, an initiative set up by the European Commission.

The goal of the initiative is to raise awareness among young Europeans and build public support for climate change policies - particularly policies that place gender equality at their core. We teamed up with Oxfam Novib to create a brand concept. They wanted an engaging, accessible narrative that would appeal to diverse European youth: Gen Z and late millennials.

We began by hosting a workshop for different partners of Oxfam. This gave us an understanding of how Gen Z and late millennials view climate change, and enabled us to come up with three different brand concepts. We then conducted focus groups and presented these concepts. Based on the received feedback, we picked the most popular one and translated that into a compelling and solid visual identity.

Creative

The biggest creative challenge was creating a brand concept that is accessible and flexible enough to encourage a diverse group of youngsters to get involved in climate activism. The focus groups revealed many different perspectives and opinions. We wanted to make sure the narrative resonates with these different voices and inspires action.

We came up with the proposition “Spark.” We chose the word spark because it acts as an umbrella term and can be used to cover a diverse range of actions: spark a change, spark a debate, spark a better future. The name also implies that it takes just a spark to make positive change.

We translated the Spark brand into a visual identity and built a brand manual that can be used for all sorts of content and different types of media. It’s an extensive multi-language manual that contains all brand elements and guidelines: logo, typography, color palette, posters, social media stickers, GIFs, filters, presentation templates, and more.

The logo has spark lines around it to emphasize the spark concept and acts as a visual identifier. The spark lines can also be applied to other creative elements.

A halftone pattern was created for youngsters to use as an overlay on their own photos. This creates a gradient effect and makes photos and visuals stand out. The halftone pattern is designed in a simple PNG format so that it’s accessible and can be used by anyone. Each brand element is customizable and can be used with other elements.

Highlights

It was exciting and fun to work on a meaningful project that will spark a difference
Speaking to the different focus groups and learning about their views and perspectives was an eye-opening experience