FRIENDS OF HACKETT
REBRANDING OUR LOCAL SCHOOL ‘FRIENDS OF’ GROUP
Philadelphia is an ever-growing city full of people trying to build their community one step at a time, just like Friends of Hackett. Friends of Hackett is a non-for-profit community group that organizes family friendly events and fundraisers for Horatio B. Hackett Elementary School. We were given the opportunity to construct a complete rebrand for Friends of Hackett, as well as design the branding for their annual block party fundraising event! Our main goals were to create a branding strategy that aligned with their mission and provide them with structured design guidelines for their overall brand and their event. Panda Pride!
INSTRUCTOR - Abby Guido
INSTITUTION - Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University
COLLABORATORS - Olivia Schroeder, Sean Delmore, Charlotte Friedman, Anthony Sanchez-Rojas
TYPOGRAPHY
EVENT DESIGN
BRANDING
The design team for Friends of Hackett is a group of five students from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture Graphic and Interactive Design program at Temple University. When starting the class, we applied for our ideal roles on the team and were interviewed for each retrospective role. Our instructor, Abby Guido, assigned us to a position that utilized our strengths and would help us improve our skills. Each role came with a list of responsibilities we were in charge of on top of the standard design work. This created an environment where we could lean on each other for support and hold each other accountable for our commitments.
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This project was going to be no easy task, which is why we were lucky enough to have such a great team of designers to create and collaborate with. Our team consisted of:
Sean Delmore (Production Manager), Charlotte Friedman (Design Manager), Olivia Schroeder (Client Manager), Anthony Sanchez-Rojas (Lead Strategist), and me, Sophia Mazza, Project Manager.
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As Project Manager, I ensured that the project was completed on time and within budget and collaborated with the Design Manager and Production Manager to set up a schedule for all deliverables. I was in charge of tracking the time of all of the team's designers and implementing a time-tracking system. I also maintained a balanced workload across all team members and provided recommendations and solutions if problems arose. With the Production Manager, we worked on the budget for the project, and I was accountable for making sure we stayed on schedule and on budget and making adjustments when needed.
The ability to team up as a group was a fantastic experience! We learned the importance of working together to meet deadlines, delegating and sharing tasks, and the joys of collaboration.
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After being assigned our roles in our team, we took time in class to have our first client meeting with some members of the Friends of Hackett board. In this meeting, we established the goals and expectations for our project as well as what deliverables they wanted by the end of our time working together. We learned a lot about Friends of Hackett and how other ‘friends of’ organizations work.
By creating their organization, the group can have more control over where the raised money goes to be used in projects. Their main goals as an organization are to improve Hackett's outcome and support the students, staff, leadership, and community. They also expressed wanting to have the ability to expand the demographics of people who support and donate to FOH.
By the end of the meeting, we were able to establish a list of deliverables for the Block Party and Friends of Hackett branding as well. This list included a modernized panda logo, a low-maintenance website, social media templates, wearables, event poster and signage for the block party, and an updated newsletter template.
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After establishing the more technical side of things, we moved onto the research phase, including sketches, mood boarding, logo research, school and website research, and the creative brief. Some key imagery or words that were found to help describe Friends of Hackett were Panda (the school’s mascot), friendship, community, education, acceptance, and growth.
While the logo research was happening, our lead strategist, Anthony, was busy conducting detailed research into Hackett’s and other competitors’ websites. Using the pros from the groups’ sites and the cons of Hackett’s current website, he produced a list of the wants and needs for the new website. This made it easier for us to create user personas for possible community members and what they would like to see theoretically on the Hackett website.
When conceptualizing a new logo for Friends of Hackett, we first looked at similar ‘Friends of’ organizations within the Philadelphia area to see how the current branding matched its competitors. Other organizations had focused on keeping a sophisticated image to draw in potential investors yet somewhat lacked in capturing an elementary school's cheerful and innocent feeling. Almost immediately, we established that our new logo should maintain the school’s sophistication and evoke a friendly feeling to draw people in. We wanted a logo that would catch the attention of potential new families, neighbors, and possible investors. Also, knowing we’d eventually design items for the school’s students, families, and staff, it should get everyone excited about wearing and representing their community.
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Community, Growth, Support, and Friendship.
The most successful logo for each descriptive word was chosen. From there they were circled through each team member until we landed on our final four to present to the board.
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These four fully fleshed-out logos were brought to the client for consideration. The client ultimately chose the Support direction for further improvement. We now finally had a direction we all could focus on. We worked on finding a typeface that captured the sophistication and reputation of a non-profit organization, capturing the likeness of the school, and developing a color scheme for the branding. Going through many typefaces, colors, and styles, we finally landed on the logo that we thought best suited the organization.
THE GARDEN PARTY
As a part of our rebranding of Friends of Hackett, we organized an event at the Hackett Elementary School playground. This event’s purpose was to show the community Friends of Hackett’s new and improved logo and provide fun and engaging activities for the children. The garden party event was a great experience for our group and a joy to give back to the community. We produced pins with our new logo to give out to everyone, in addition to planned activities that included chalk drawing, panda sketching, panda mask-making, and face painting.
REBRANDING FRIENDS OF HACKETT
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After analyzing the research and discussing it with the client, we landed on a new site map for the new website. Our Client Manager, Olivia, took on the bulk of developing the website. The content on each page was important to organize properly for easy understanding by the viewer. On the home page, the content is limited to a large photo of the logo, the mission statement, and the Instagram feed at the bottom. This simplicity on the homepage was important to the organization to not distract from the main goals and current events.
I was responsible for setting up the shop page and designing the merchandise that would be listed on it. I designed a variety of merchandise spanning from printed leggings to t-shirts to scrunchies. Utilizing slogans like ‘Hackett Mom’, ‘Hackett Dad’, ‘Hackett Brother’, etc., and new renditions of our four original logos allowed me to create a wide range of items.
Anyone can easily log onto this page and purchase a t-shirt, hoodie, scrunchie, or more. The process was meant to be easy and simple, like any online shopping website.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The new website was built using Squarespace, and it allows for easy updates by members of the organization if updates are needed. A main goal we wanted to accomplish with the website was sustainability with little to no normal edits. With this in mind, we used an Instagram social media widget on the home page to allow for psyched updates of events and current news without making changes on the website.
The social media design was one of the main aspects of the branding that Charlotte, the Design Manager, worked on for this project. Since their Instagram would be one of the main ways they would communicate with their community. We wanted to create a playful, colorful style that still reflected the brand's professionalism. It was also vital that we keep the templates as straightforward as possible while still conveying all of the necessary information. The main goal of creating these templates was to create a guide that the board members could use easily and quickly when needed.
A significant component of the social media design was the use of icons. Charlotte created a clean, line drawing style that she transferred across the entire icon library. As a group, we decided on themed sets of icons that could be used in multiple settings and based on events that occurred frequently. We created eleven themes for the icons; flowers, garden, school, animals, science and music, food, weather, sports, numbers, environment, and events and holidays. Each of us tackled a few from selected groups. From there, Charlotte went back to tweak some to make them all stylistically cohesive. In the end, over 100 different icons were created.
THE BLOCK PARTY
Hackett’s yearly block party allows all the students and families to get together at the beginning of the new school year to enjoy a day full of games, food, activities, raffles, and socializing. This year, especially now with the rebranding of Friends of Hackett, we had wanted to not only create a poster and merchandise exclusive to the event but to help establish how future block parties would be marketed. This should serve as a template for future posters and leave coming artists with as much artistic liberty when designing. Our team member Sean, Production Manager, took on this year's poster and merchandise with his unique illustration style.
For our year, we wanted to go with a vintage aesthetic with the illustration style and the halftone and texture qualities. The poster focuses on the close friendship of the school and the organization with its depiction of a cast of friends carrying items to the block party! Whether it be a boom box, a paintbrush, or a hotdog, we wanted to stress the importance of community and camaraderie among the Hackett family.