Rose City Pride Bands
Brief — Develop a new brand and common language to help a local performing arts nonprofit elevate their presence in the community and bring in new audiences
R O L E
Project Lead
S K I L L S
Brand Strategy and Language,
Logo Design
D A T E
June 2016 through July 2020
T E A M
Jess Leftault (Designer)
Denny Richard (Board Chair)
RCPB Board and Membership
Context
In June of 2015, I joined the board of what was then known as the Rose City Gay Freedom Bands. I was a long time supporter who had played with several of the bands and eager to see what I could bring to the organization. The board chair, Denny, asked me to join the board because we needed to assess the group’s future and the best way to go about growing the organization.
What started as a short conversation became a multi-year process to redefine the organization’s identity and mission to what it is today. By the end, we would have a new name and logo for the organization, new mission, vision, purpose, promise statements, and the confidence to believe the organization could do bigger things.
Questions
Who are the Rose City Gay Freedom Bands and what does the community know about us?
How can the brand be more inclusive of the other letters in LGBTQ+ and not only the G?
How do we grow our audiences and presence in the community at large?
Start at the Top
As we started to think about our questions, it became clear we were taking on a bigger endeavor than we had imagined. The 30 year-old organization was at a tipping point where they could either be defunct or thriving in 5 years.
Our productions were our main source of revenue, but we were barely breaking even. We knew we needed a model that diversified our budget by relying on sponsors and grants to grow in any substantial way. When we considered grant applications or approached businesses about supporting us, we realized we didn’t have a common language to talk about the band and why our presence mattered to the community.
P H A S E 1
August 2016
Defining Our Common Language
To build out a common language, we interviewed founding and longtime members, audience members, and other community leaders to understand what the band had meant to them over the last 30 years.
What we found was a symphony of voices saying the same thing:
This organization is a space where musicians and audience members can connect emotionally through the powerful force of music.
Because this wasn’t showing up in our language, we used the information we had collected to create four new statements that would fully define the organization and provide members with the common language we lacked.
Mission
RCGFB is a welcoming space for members and allies of the LGBT community to forge connections through music.
Vision
We believe music empowers communities to collectively build harmonious societies.
Purpose
RCGFB cultivates a network of music enthusiasts, instrumentalists, and members of the LGBTQ+ community to entertain audiences and use music as a vehicle to unify our communities.
Promise
We promise to create intimate musical experiences that connect RCGFB members to one another and the community.
P H A S E 2
August 2017
Analyzing Our Naming Structure
With a common language in place, we began studying the organization’s structure to see if it was actually represented in our groups. Although we had discussed the possibility of a name change, the need for it was apparent once we fully grasped how separated our ensembles felt from each other.
There were two reasons to change our name:
Relevance
The organization had been renamed in the ‘90s to include the phrase “Gay Freedom.” This was bold at the time, but now it excluded the many letters in LGBTQ+ represented in our membership.
Structure
RCGFB was using more than 12 different words to name our ensembles. Not only did they feel disjointed from each other, it was also challenging to talk about and market the ensembles with outsiders.
By simplifying the structure, each group could be referred to by the type of music they perform under the name Rose City Pride Bands.
P H A S E 3
July 2018
Logo Design
After involving membership in a thorough process, a new name, Rose City Pride Bands, was approved. Because of all the work we had done on the language, we knew that we wanted to position ourselves as the connecting piece between music and the LGBTQ+ community.
With some brainstorming and sketching, I figured out how to make sure this concept showed up in our visual identity.
Typography
Typography was crucial to the logo itself, so I started considering the font early in the process. I wanted something that was unique and strong, but also approachable and a little playful.
Filson Soft fit the part perfectly.
Color
Color is always a challenge for LGBTQ+ organizations. The rainbow has come to represent all things queer, but using every color can be an overload on the eyes.
I wanted a palette that felt a little more special than the typical rainbow flag, which uses the most basic hue of each color. Instead, I used more muted and lightened colors to build out a unique palette.
Answers
Using interviews with longtime members, we established a clear mission, vision, purpose and promise that centered the connections we make with music.
We assessed the structure of the ensembles and renamed the organization to be more inclusive of all our members.
With a recognizable logo, we are better able to present ourselves to the community at large. Since the rebrand, we have built relationships with other LGBTQ+ music organizations that has allowed all groups to benefit from each other’s successes.