Branding a City. Sisters, Oregon.

When I was approached to help with branding the city in which I live I was a bit hesitant. The challenge given to me was to create a brand that would provide a unifying theme to represent the City’s various interest groups, along with becoming the catalyst to market the city as a vacation destination.

I began by sending out an extensive brand questionnaire to 75 city residents from various backgrounds and interests. This enabled me to find a common theme that would represent the city’s brand essence. In reading through the questionnaires, I found that many moved to the area to pioneer a new and better way of life. From this came the verbal brand tag line, ‘Pioneering Spirit’. Because of the western architectural theme of the town, my visual solution for the brand was a literal branding iron symbol. The logo positions the ‘S’ for Sisters in the center of an ‘O’, representing Oregon. The assignment also included website design and a year long advertising campaign.

To my delight, the new brand has been well received throughout the community along with providing a clear and focused brand message in which to market this unique and special region within Central Oregon. 

Branding for Non-Profits

I have long felt that branding is especially relevant for non-profit organizations. In Jim Collins’ Good to Great he speaks of the importance of branding in the social sector. He believes an organizations’ key link is their brand reputation, in order that both current and potential supporters believe not only in their mission, but the capacity to deliver on that mission and brand promise.

I have recently been working on a branding project for World Relief. Their vision is to relieve human suffering, poverty and hunger worldwide in the name of Jesus Christ. This new brand, named The World Relief NEXT Project, was created to attract the emerging and ‘next’ generation of people to bring hope to those most vulnerable around the world. These exhibits show the brand look-and-feel in initial design development.

I believe branding and design has enormous power to enhance the thing it represents and lift an organization from appearing ordinary to something extraordinary. Branding especially matters for non-profit organizations, and I believe more than marketing, it is defining and declaring a movement with meaning.