Graphic Design Illustration Storytelling Latin Art

Elevar

ELEVAR is a rebranding project for the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GPHCC?) as a lockup identity

The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is an organization dedicated to empowering Hispanic independent business owners through educational programs, seminars, pop-up events, and the like in an endeavor to benefit Hispanic businesses in the greater Philadelphia area.

That said, their name is a mouth-full.

In this project, I aim to rebrand the chamber through a lock-up approach to create a shorter, more memorable branding concept that can help to attract the businesses that they seek to empower.

Existing Branding

Overview

Established in 1990, the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (GPHCC) is a not-for-profit organization devoted to promoting the advancement and economic growth of Hispanic businesses and professionals in the greater Philadelphia region. We accomplish this through educational programs, a broad range of services, and special events. The GPHCC proactively serves a diverse membership—consisting of entrepreneurs, Latino businesses, Latino professionals, corporations, and government—with the overriding goal of helping these critical constituencies capitalize on the many opportunities their diversity, enhanced by our Latino multicultural mix, offers.

Mission

To develop, promote and advocate for Hispanic business in the Greater Philadelphia region while encouraging the advancement and economic growth of the Hispanic community.

Vision

To be recognized as the premier resources organization and voice servicing Hispanic businesses as well as the major force of positive change in the Latino business community

The Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is currently represented with a circular logo of what seems to be a resounding sound wave accompanied by the name in partially tracked type then bolded larger pt. font size.

Cultural References

Initial Font Exploration

ELEVAR seeks to empower Hispanic businesses from various industries and therefore needs to appear professional with an air of simplicity. Running an independent business is hard enough without having to figure out obscure methods to improve your revenue.

Therefore, I determined a wordmark based on an existing elegant font with a bit of tweaking would better serve the varied market that Elevar seeks to empower.

The font I initially selected is Lato, an Open Source font designed by Adam Twardoch, Botio Nikoltchev, and Łukasz Dziedzic. Upon finding inspiration in the lighter 300 pt. weight, I then moved on to developing the wordmark through a lengthy series of explorations.

Elevar | ELEVAR

Elevar | ELEVAR

Elevar | ELEVAR

Elevar | ELEVAR

Elevar | ELEVAR

Wordmark Exploration

Below you can see the evolution of the wordmark through my many studies.

Sationary

Adopting the signature red of the chamber, I took the wordmark design approach I selected from my exploration and tested it in a series of scenarioes based on professional stationery.

The very first design I created, and most commonly used in an organization like this, was the letterhead. I decided to lean into the diagonal led by the red rectangles in the wordmark to include the lockup of the chamber’s full name to enact the lockup.

From there I moved on to the business card and envelope designs that challenged my initial approach to utilize the red rectangles to deepen the branding essence.

Application examples

In today’s world, you can save a bookmark to a website on your phone and make it appear like an application. I thought of some more younger business owners possibly utilizing this unique function and took the time to develop a monogram design that could also be leveraged for an app icon.

Should the chamber ever create an app, I imagine it would look like the photo where I staged the app live on an Apple iPhone.

Taking things a step further, I thought of the inclusion of the wordmark in an office setting. The chamber at the time of my design project maintained an office presence as a part of a greater facility that housed other organizations. If the chamber wants to stand out and be easily recognized among other brands, I imagine they might print out vinyl die-cutes of the wordmark and place them on windows throughout the office and on facility directory signage.

I manipulated the image and placed the wordmark on the glass with a gentle light reflection to emulate the effect of being in a well-lit room. Granted, they may not do something like this, but I did design the wordmark to stand out and it feels really nice on glass.

Website Design

The existing site for the chamber lacks organization, typographic hierarchy, and proper use of branding colors. In this initial above the fold website design, I imagine what the chamber might be more in line with communicating to their clients.

A clean, easy-to-navigate, and well-branded experience that provides an air of professionalism. Here I focused on a design that garners trust from small-business owners who may need help trusting the future of their business with the chamber.

Elevar Ad Spot

Considering Philly is a major city, getting the word out needs to go beyond printed material. Here I found stock video footage of Center City Philadelphia, and then created a little jingle, and developed a small ad spot for the organization.

Checkout the complete video with the jingle I created to go along with the motion graphic of the wordmark logo animation below.

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