In response to the discriminatory stance Lee University (my alma mater) has continued to take against the LGBTQIA+ community, Lee alum came together to form, almost overnight, an organization to support and offer resources for current LGBTQIA+ students at Lee University.
It was about time for queer alum and affirming allies to come together to support students when it is clear that Lee University would refuse to do so. It was absolutely my pleasure to create the logo, branding, and website for the newly-minted AAC in just about 72-hours.
Some of my best work happens when I'm under pressure, and truly art and design are a gift to me because I get to channel all my feelings and emotions into action.
Logomark
AAC's tagline is "we've got you covered" which is a play off of Lee University Alumni Relation's campaign using yellow umbrellas to represent alumni and donors support and funding are supporting students on campus. Of course, the adminstration's hard and fast stance against the queer community shows that the supposed "covering" only extends to the students with which the university agrees with.
Thus: a rainbow umbrella has come to represent our brand. As a designer, I know that just having a rainbow colored logo isn't viable for all platforms, so I wanted to represent the queer community in our logo without creating a tacky feeling and upholding our professionalism and our connection to students as alumni who have "been there."
Colors & Typography
For colors, I wanted to have a bright feeling to our brand, but keep our social media and website presence relatively consistent. I stuck to a simple color scheme to set the brand in stone for those who follow and use the brand after I move on. Early stage organizations like this usually have high turnover in volunteer staff, so giving less options for the brand representation was a weighed decision for me to maintain the integrity of the brand.
Social Media
In the same vein of keeping the brand simple so that it's easier for others to create impactful posts without direct assistance from me. In my absence, I left behind social media templates for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that I built in Google Slides so the current members can easily swap out new content and download the photos and post to socials.
Website
I created the affirmingalum.com website on Carrd, a free and accessible drag-and-drop builder with really great coding capabilities. I had never used Carrd before this project, but I'm pretty well versed in any drag and drop website like Wix, Squarespace, Adobe Portfolio, and now Carrd.
The main purpose of AAC is to offer resources for current students, so getting this website up ASAP was hugely important to our cause. While I am no longer involved with AAC, the initial design and construction was completely my responsibility and I left detailed tutorials in my absence so updates to the site could be made. See a scroll through the website below: