Doing Good With Good Design
Sun Foundation: Designing a Non-profit
The Sun Foundation is a non-profit founded in Central Illinois in 1973. It provides art and environmental sciences programs to a mostly rural, under-served community. The organization is best known for its weeklong summer day camp, Art and Science in the Woods, and its Clean Water Celebration, an annual event that educates students and the community on water conservation. The foundation also regrants funds to local arts programs and hosts smaller workshops throughout the year that promote connections to the environment and arts.
One of our partners, Blair Hannah, became involved with the Sun Foundation in high school, and has continued to support the organization over the years. Having never had a true design system — working only off of a logo Blair created in his first graphic design class in college — we approached them to develop a comprehensive identity system as they entered their 45th year of serving their community.
Every year we commit a portion of our time and resources to charitable causes. We believe good design paired with organizations that are doing good can have a lasting impact on our communities.
Research
At the onset of this project, we wanted to learn more about the Sun Foundation and what’s made it successful for 45 years, intending for our branding, design, and marketing efforts to build on this existing success. We kicked off the project by holding a positioning workshop with the organization’s founders, some board members, and key volunteers. Our group identified target audiences and points of difference and drafted brand attributes and an organizational vision. With our draft positioning established, we surveyed members of the community to understand how they see the Sun Foundation, its programs, donation experience, branding, and website.
Brand Survey Insights
Our brand research helped us better understand what the Sun Foundation represents to its donors, program participants, and volunteers. Our survey results largely validated the positioning information from our prior workshop, with one additional theme: community. Respondents overwhelmingly told us that in addition to the important work the Sun Foundation is doing in the region, that the people affiliated with the Sun Foundation and the sense of community they felt made the organization very unique and important to them.
As a result of the positioning workshop and brand survey, we defined the Sun Foundation brand attributes:
- Imaginative
- Vibrant
- Optimistic
- Open-minded
- Welcoming
- Respectful
- Wise
A Timeless Logo
We see a great logo as something identifiable and individual — a vessel to which an organization can attach meaning through a visual identity, writing, images, products, services, and customer experiences. Since the Sun Foundation offers an evolving and wide range of programs, we opted to pursue a simple word mark to ensure imagery and style wouldn’t hinder their brand in the years to come. Our yellow “rising sun” type treatment communicates many of the established brand attributes while being classic and simple. Through the use of a variable font, we were able to build the logo shape with precisely the letter-width and weight that provided the perfect look and legibility.
An Attainable Identity
We challenged ourselves to create an identity system for the Sun Foundation that would be impactful and artistic, but also easy to use. The Sun Foundation has an army of volunteers all with varying levels of design experience and access to design software. The design language needed to be easy and accessible enough for anyone to replicate in order to build brand equity.
Some examples of how we accomplished this:
- Limited color palette
- Adobe® Fonts, with Google font substitutes
- Defined “programing pillars” with specific design attributes
- Photography-focused design (one of the founders is a professional photographer, so their photo library is extensive)
A More (User-)Friendly Website
The Sun Foundation’s new brand identity all came together in a completely reimagined website. Based on community feedback, users wanted a clearer hierarchy of information and an improved user experience when donating and registering for programs. We made sure to highlight quantitative data and individual stories for convincing calls to action and feature high-quality, real photography. We’re now part-way through the Sun Foundation’s busy programing season and so far we’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from donors, parents, and staff using the site about how quick and easy it is to find information and take action.
“You have made my job much easier and as a volunteer working another full time job I can’t tell you how much that means. Thank you, thank you!”
— Sharon Obery, Art & Science in the Woods program coordinator
A Bright Future
We’re very proud to have helped the Sun Foundation create an identity that reflects what we see in them: a beautiful community of people providing children opportunities to connect with artists, scientists, and nature that they wouldn’t otherwise have. We hope that our work helps energize and grow their community to serve future generations of young people.
“The Sun Foundation has never felt so bright. I am pinching myself, overwhelmed with joy and gratitude for the amazing work of Concentric Design!”
— Joan Root Ericksen, Co-founder & Development Director
See More from this Project
Visit Concentric Design’s portfolio to see more design from this project, or see the Sun Foundation’s live website.
Like What You’ve Seen?
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