Laying the Groundwork for Organizational Expansion

Lake Travis Education Foundation (LTEF) has a rich 40-year history of helping teachers, students, and schools secure the resources they need to preserve and enrich the quality of education within its local school district. Facing increased competition for donor and sponsor dollars, LTEF wanted to uphold its long-standing history while updating its visual brand to portray a more modern and professional look that inspires trust and confidence in its community. The organization partnered with Bloom Communications to bring this brand vision to life.

Exploring Audience Motivations and Gaining Insight to Inform Brand Development

Our creative team first conducted discovery research to reveal LTEF’s overall challenges, goals, and opportunities. By exploring the needs and desires of the school district’s families, parents, grandparents, teachers, and alumni, along with new residents in the Lake Travis community, we gained a full picture of the LTEF audiences. We found that these audiences were motivated by the opportunity to provide community support and the best education for their children. 

Our team also reviewed existing nonprofits and like-minded organizations in the Central Texas area to see how LTEF compared visually. This was an important step in the creative process to ensure the updated branding would stand out among other established brands in the market. This was valuable to the brand because, in the competitive landscape of vying for donation and sponsorship dollars, the LTEF brand needed to have an impressive visual presence that spoke to potential donors.

Strategy – Developing an Updated Brand that Speaks to the Community

The first step in our proven creative development process was to develop a mood board to align on the best creative direction to propel LTEF forward visually. The mood board included visual representations that demonstrated the tone and “vibe” the organization desired. Imagery, colors, and patterns that reflected what we envisioned to personify the brand. This methodical creative exploration paints a picture of how the brand will develop and allows the client to visualize the direction before assets are created.

We then moved into developing logo options and brand elements that captured and evoked the essence of the organization and its established history in the community. The logo process included identifying symbols and elements that visually represented the mission, vision, and values of the organization. We presented various logo options based on the approved mood board direction for client discussion–we would never only provide one logo option—to allow for a collaborative process between the client and our team. After a selection was made, Brand Guidelines were developed to serve as a roadmap for the organization, including the approved logo, brand colors, font usage guidelines,  icons, and graphic patterns, and established a prescribed photography style. 

Results – Manifesting School Pride Visually

LTEF’s new branding successfully exudes the professionalism, trustworthiness, and scholastic pursuit the community desired from the brand. It sets the stage for the organization to demonstrate a continued focus and dedication to providing educational support in the community and propels them toward expanding awareness to gather donor support for years to come.