From a childhood memory to a mission-driven organisation

Amidst all the chaos of life and the hustle and bustle of work, the symbol of a pond acts as a sacred place for organisations to find calm and make wise decisions. Founded on that premise, Pond Foundation has grown into a global mission-driven brand, guiding organisations to decisive climate action.

However, to ensure their brand messaging was appropriately delivered, Pond Foundation needed a brand new logo and a website redesign. So, Scott and Sam decided to go with me not only because of the quality of work I provide but also because we clicked on a deeper level—our seemingly naive but very much-needed drive for service to others.

Let the ripples begin

A pond creates ripples, just like good ideas generate an impact. So, my initial logo exploration gravitated around that metaphor alongside similar ones, like a lotus flower in the middle.

Early logomark exploration.

How about a responsive logo?

While the idea might be neat and innovative, I realised the riskiness of such a creative decision, as it poses a risk to brand memorability. No matter how visually appealing the logo looks, it‘s not the wisest approach to go.

A responsive logo, perhaps? 🤔

The imperfect-perfect circle

What‘s the simplest way a pond can be represented visually? Do I hear a circle? That‘s right. One might say a circle is too simple of a shape for a logo, but when you put the circle in the proper context and pair it with a font that is the perfect match, it begins to whisper you a story.

The chosen logo.

Typography of perfectly-imperfect lines to go along with the perfectly-imperfect mark.

Minimal, organic, with a dash of grunge

Taking the logo as a starting point, the website follows the same direction—minimal, accessible, and a bit rough around the edges to hint at the natural world just enough.

You won‘t find anything pitch black or pure white. Instead, the main layout tone is a very light and pale beige that pairs well with the specific type of blue I picked for the brand colour.

A website is nothing without the little visuals

That‘s why I paid particular attention to the website's iconography. The spot icons are taken from and adapted from my 2017 bestseller icon library.

Custom brand iconography

But a website is also more than the little visuals

There is much more to crafting a successful website than the visual and technical side of things. Following my website checklist, I paid meticulous attention to the alternative text for images and used proper colour contrast for accessibility, using SEO tags and descriptions for each screen, and the list goes on.

But we needed to launch. I‘m happy to share that Sam decided to follow my suggestion of moving away from the old domain at thepondfoundation.org and adopting a succinct and memorable domain name—pond.foundation.

pond.foundation

Zlatko developed a new website and logo that really captures the essence of our work, and was exactly what we needed as a growing organization. He was a pleasure to work with, and more than exceeded our expectations!

— Sam Ashworth, Operations Lead at Pond Foundation

Case study originally published at https://ensage.co/work/pond-foundation

Like this project

Posted Aug 30, 2024

From a childhood memory to a mission-driven organisation. Deliverables: Logo guide + logo guide, Website design + development, Marketing design

Likes

Views