Mental Health Association branding

This was an identity project for a nonprofit organization in Norman, Oklahoma. Given the class project, I sought out a list of non- or not-for-profit organizations within the city. Immediately drawn to the Cleveland County Mental Health Association because I lived directly across the street from Griffin Memorial Hospital, a local asylum and rehabilitation center, I began to sketch.

Initial sketches showed no progress, so I took a step back and really thought about not only the words but what this group actually does for the community . I realized that I was not taking the association seriously enough.

From this point I began to work with ligature solutions. I found that the integration of the letters ‘M’ and ‘H’ created a strong foundation. An idea I feel is very important to mental health. The overlaying of a script ‘A’ allowed a visual strength that tied the icon together.

Now I had an icon that held a strong base for an identity system. I began to experiment with different layouts and treatments of the letterhead. Initially heavy handed I concentrated on the folds of paper to break up the space, and then lightened the visual dominance of the bottom icon. I then took a step away from the letterhead to an invoice slip. This initially was very clumsy. I rotated the axis of the page to allow easy filing of the invoices, especially to intend the use of a three ring binder. I feel that the envelope was more successful. I kept the front very plain as a whole, and the back subtle. The use of the white flap on the gray envelop created a sense of dominance that emphasized the logo.

Finally was the business card. The shape of the logo was nearly the same as a normal card. Finding shape and size to be most beneficial in what makes a card stand out, I choose to decrease the width of a normal card to fit the logo. This I used to fill one side, the other is to be filled with pertinent information in a hierarchy: the name of the association being predominant, followed by the card holder and their information