West Slope Library Branding
After a years long partnership with Washington County Cooperative Library Services as their branding and marketing agency, they approached Smith & Connors to rebrand a branch that had seen a positives shifts in the surrounding community.
West Slope residents had become younger, more diverse, and more family-oriented in recent years, and WCCLS wanted to revamp their library branch to attract those new community members. Using an iconic, long standing tree that lives on the property as our inspiration, we created an approachable and flexible brand that was rooted in discovery, play, and simplicity—with librarian implementation being a non-negotiable. This brand had to be easily implemented and maintained by non-designers.
We executed the brand across an array of marketing materials that included a suite of brochures and handouts, a custom Canva workspace with over 40 social media templates for use, and refreshed wall and shelf signage. We were proud to breathe new life into the humble little branch, which continues to see an rise in visitors from the West Slope community.
The massive fir tree that stands prominently on the library grounds was the inspiration for both our brand mark and a set of icons we created to support brand messaging.
Each icon uses pine needles from the brand mark, creating a cohesive set that is centered around ideas of growth, connection, and learning—setting the stage for sub-branding opportunities based on programming and activities they were offering to library patrons. These could also be used in larger formats as a graphic background patterns that helped break up white space and add playfulness to compositions.
A bright and friendly color palette grounded in a few deep warm and cool tones provided a ton of range for use, and range especially as we provided guidance on accessible color combinations in their brand guide.
Signal a sense of timelessness in style by carrying forward aspects of its existing identity and honoring its beloved history.
Create a feeling of friendliness and accessibility.
Inject moments of cleverness to the visual experience.
Bring out the sense of joy in learning and connecting with community.
Three librarians shared all marketing responsibilities for the branch, so we had to approach designs templates systematically, and simply. We created a system of templates that included a simple type hierarchy system, framing shapes, and color variation that could be easily cycled through to create steady materials that met an array of content needs.
We created a custom Canva workspace for the library, building a full brand kit with their fonts, icons, color palette, and starter photo assets. Using the brand kit, we built out over 23 custom branded canva templates across 8 colorways to be used across social media, print, and digital communications.
