UNICEF Innovation, The Brand

Designing a cohesive, agile and fresh brand system for innovation work at UNICEF.

WHAT
The UNICEF innovation brand system was created to share a clear story about who the innovation team is, what the work stands for and how it gets done. It conveys the personality of a team that is forward thinking and optimistic and is primarily built to be used by non-designers. After collecting stories and consultations with the larger team and many iterations, the UNICEF Innovation brand system was created to follow four clear principles - honour UNICEF, reflect innovation principles, be easy to apply and be simple and clear.

WHY
Throughout my time at UNICEF, the innovation ‘brand’ had been a work in progress. Fragments of colour palettes, fonts and imagery were being paired up as the need arose. We reached a point in our projects where people were using too many different visual languages to talk about the same things. We needed one, cohesive system that would tell our story clearly and memorably - one that would be easy to use by everyone. 

Why didn’t we do this sooner? The team was always hesitant to create a brand for UNICEF Innovation, not wanting to be too distinct or separate from the larger UNICEF brand. Our design team tasked itself with trying to create something that reaches a happy medium while also staying authentic to the UNICEF Innovation agenda. The term ‘no brand branding’ came about and stuck.

WHEN
2017

ROLE
BRANDING
ART DIRECTION

TEAM
TANYA BHANDARI
TUSHAR GHEI

The UNICEF Innovation brand system was built to be applied across a variety of platforms and use cases. Since our work is so diverse, the identity needed to be agile enough to be used through presentations, social media, information graphics, digital products, print publications etc. It was also built so that all assets are editable and flexible enough for non-designers to use. We explored the limits of google documents and powerpoint slides to ensure that elements of design were balanced out with usability.