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LOGO | IDENTITY BRANDING | BRAND STRATEGY | ENVIRONMENTAL NONPROFIT

THE WATERSHED FUND

brand BRIEF

Cleaner water, healthier habitats, and sustainable conservation in the Connecticut River Watershed.

Role: Creative Director

Client: Estuary Magazine, The Watershed Fund

Scope: Branding, Logo, Brand Strategy, Marketing, Environmental Nonprofit

The Watershed Fund for the Connecticut River is a nonprofit on a mission to support cleaner water, healthier habitats, and sustainable conservation in the CT River Watershed. A supporting partner of Estuary Magazine, the environmental publication for which I serve as Creative Director, The Watershed Fund came to me in search of a foundational logo for their growing organization.  

While many nonprofits within the conservation space trend toward academic, institutional, and somewhat outdated brand conventions, the board of TWF sought to amplify their vision with a more modern brand identity. 

With a directive to evoke the multifaceted nature of their mission, celebrating the entire ecosystem of the watershed - fish, fowl, water, and wildlife - I set out to design a logo that was playful yet forward-thinking, mission-based, and approachable.  

Brand Discovery Direction
The Connecticut River watershed is teeming with ecological diversity, viscerally alive in every sense of the word. Whether paddling the waterways or strolling forest trails, one is struck by an immense awareness of humming life. A cacophony of insect orchestras, babbling brooks, and melodic birdsong provide the soundtrack; meanwhile a vibrant spectrum of earthen hues and organic textures overtake every vista in sight. Having grown up in reverence of this Arcadian refuge, I approached brand discovery with a personal devotion to bring the watershed to life. 

My rapid ideation pursued four primary directions:

  • "Leafy droplets": lively, graphic, representative. These geometric designs depict the dualistic nature of water and foliage that characterizes the watershed.
  • "Ripple effect": sophisticated, interpretive, abstract. These designs represent the ripple effect that caring for the watershed has on our environment and the community.
  • "Wildlife pillars": bold, playful, representative. This concept represents the multi-faceted ecosystem that the Watershed Fund protects: water, fish, fowl, and foliage.
  • "Landscapes": evocative, literal, figurative. This concept explores literal illustrations of the watershed and representative landscapes, utilizing different stylistic approaches.

Across all brand directions, I employed a vibrant organic palette of greens, teals, and cobalts, modern graphic treatments, and clean sans-serif typefaces. 

A Winning Logo
The board selected our internal team's favored frontrunner as their final design - the "leafy droplet."  

Modern, playful, and vibrant, the winning logo is both simple and sophisticated. Cascading cobalt waves ascend in a gradient of blues, transitioning into leafy greens, all encapsulated within the silhouette of a water drop. The colorful icon is a nod to the multifaceted ecosystem of the watershed, complemented by a bold typeface emphasizing the innovation of the nonprofit's vision. The Watershed Fund now embarks on a new chapter with an enhanced brand identity that embodies the core of it's mission: preserve and protect the ecosystem that many creatures, great and small, call home.

You've gone above and beyond in your exploration for the Watershed Fund.  Any of these directions would be winning designs for our mission!

- DICK SHRIVER, FOUNDER, ESTUARY MAGAZINE

We would be proud to launch any of these logos tomorrow.

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