Launching this month—a collaboration of 10 Whatcom County and Washington agencies and non-profits—The Bellingham Energy Prize Campaign. These organizations banded together with my client Sustainable Connections (SC) to participate in the Georgetown University Energy Prize competition. The winning city will get 5 million dollars to use as they see fit, the goal being to save energy. Bellingham partnered with the City of Anacortes to the south and I was invited to develop the branding.
The project timeline was short and added to the stress of delivering a campaign I learned that my wonderful Sustainable Connections, Creative Director, Michelle Grandy, was leaving her position. Despite the short time frame and sweet sadness of this being our last project we forged ahead together and produced another fine campaign. This campaign, at it’s core, is meant to be playful and engaging, and swift to motivate local citizens to save a bit more energy and in so doing help the community to win big! The look needed to be separate from Sustainable Connections brand while still relying on it. The color palette is a departure from that of SC, and is meant to be a little more primary and immediate. I drew inspiration from High-voltage warning signage for the palette and also the simple angular symbols pairing the whole thing with an irreverent font and cats! No one would ever suppose these materials came from a local government or public utility! Not that there is anything wrong with those things! We met our goal of creating the brand and launching a website in under a month over the 2015 Christmas holiday.
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