Designing a unique persona for the next wave of tech leaders. And generating some big results.
The Client
BUILT BY GIRLS - at the time, a part of Verizon Media, is an organization that provides tech resources and opportunities to female and gender non-binary identifying people between the ages of 15-22.
My Role
Design & Social Media.
Sole Designer on the team that focused on Brand and Marketing.
BUILT BY GIRLS is an organization that was created in 2014. It is an organization that provides resources and opportunities to female and gender non-binary identifying people between the ages of 15-22.
When I started working with the brand in January 2018, I was presented with a challenge. Using my design skills, how can I enforce the current branding into the social media page, a first touchpoint for many members in our community. In addition to that, how can I strengthen the presence of the branding, using the foundational assets?
Purpose
Taking into consideration our audience, female and gender non-binary identifying people between the ages of 15-22, and being a part of the audience myself made it easy to start to think of some pain points when looking at the Instagram.
BUILT BY GIRLS had a basic brand suite that consisted of 3 colors + a logo + some patterns so the design options were very limited to staying within the realms of those colors and patterns.
It was even trickier to make branding that spoke to the evolved audience. There are a lot of similar career-focused brands out there that are excelling in their aesthetic quality. While at the same time, the opportunity space to be a design-focused STEAM brand was unique.
Solution
After several months of experimentation through posting different brand styles on social, and evaluating some competitors, the brand suite was extended beyond the original colors and style. In this new style was the use of illustrations, which we referred to as doodles, that accented the imagery and designs. Along with that new accent was also several additional colors. At first, this new style was used across social media, but it was eventually extended to other parts of the brand, such as the marketing site, promotional materials, and a Times Square billboard.
Results
Throughout the year we conducted focus groups and evaluated the results of posts and imagery through performance tracking. In the end, BUILT BY GIRLS not only became a brand that was more aesthetically consistent, but also it was a recognizable brand. We became “the brand with the doodles.”
