RAI Brand Book
Redesigning the Look of a Local Nonprofit
HCDE 308: Visual Communication
January - March 2020
Individual Work
Visual Design | Icons & Logos
The Project: Create a Brand Book
In HCDE 308, the final project was to make a brand book for a local nonprofit.. The goal is to re-vitalize the visual design of a group that often doesn’t have time or resources to do it themselves. . The brand book had to include the following elements:
Refined Logo
Refined icons
Color pallet
Typography
Image choices
Refined mobile flow
Researching RAI
Multiple students picked RAI, and while we designed individually, we researched together. Research included:
Exploring RAI’s website
Joining their newsletter
Exploring their social media
Interviewing RAI’s founder, Ming-Ming Tung-Edelman
Who is RAI?
RAI, or the Refugee Artisan Initiative, is a Seattle-based nonprofit focused on providing refugees skills and jobs in artisan projects. The projects center on artisan work such a sewing or jewelry making. The nonprofit ensures a living wage and practical skills. RAI’s main goals are:
Support Refugee Women
Create Circular Economy
Up-cycling and Sustainability
Flexible work environments
Connect communities
Ideation and Development (Individual)
I felt like some sort of weaving metaphor would be apt for RAI: Individual threads, who are lonely by themselves, get woven into a larger, beautiful tapestry. RAI focused on connecting refugees to skill trainings, local companies to refugees, and then the products created to buyers. All of their work creates a larger, loving community. So, my initial sketches played around with braids and weaves
Final Brand Book
Reflection
Looking back on this work, I’m happy with my result. There are a few parts that I could definitely improve, such as the image button and the type legibility. All in all, this project inspired me, and there are various ways I can continue it, such as:
Revise and further develop the high fidelity mobile flow.
Extend the design to newsletters, social media, and other forms RAI uses to communicate
Revise and add the icons I created to the Noun Project, (a free icon website)
