ADUSA RESEARCH & DESIGN TEAM BRANDING
Crafting a Unique Identity: Designing a Bold Brand for a Creative Team
timeline
12 weeks
role
-Created brand style guide
-Created team identity and values
-Facilitated branding workshops
-Developed team design system
tools
Mural
Figma
MS Powerpoint
Adobe Suite
team
Christina Greco
Juanita Londono Castillo
A Glimpse at the Process
Shaping Our Identity, Designing Our Future
As one of the founding members of the Design & Research Team at ADUSA, I had the exciting opportunity to help shape our team's identity from the ground up.
My mission?
To create a brand guide and design toolkit that would not only align our processes but also unite us as a standout team within the organization. With our team still in its early stages, this was a chance to define who we are and set the foundation for how we collaborate.
Mood boards developed from team insights
logo design brainstorm - word map
Putting the pieces together
To craft the final branding elements, I drew inspiration from the concepts developed during our collaborative sessions, along with my own creative exploration. Our goal was clear: to create a bright, vibrant, and unique identity that stands out.
We wanted to communicate to others within the organization that we're here to support them and bring a sense of cohesion to the often high-pressure and complex IT environment. Below, you'll find a look at some of the key elements that helped bring this vision to life!
Logo brain dump
Discomoji creation
Color palette exploration concepts
Final Assets
El Discomoji
Designing our logo was a labor of love, with careful attention to every detail. We aimed to capture a sense of fun and positive energy, reflecting our desire to leave a joyful and uplifting impression on everyone who interacts with our team.
The disco ball symbolizes reflection—a nod to our commitment to listening and empathizing with our users. Just as the ball reflects light, we see our role as reflecting and amplifying their feedback. The true impact of our work comes from understanding our users and representing their needs to the best of our ability.
A Collaborative Experience
Understanding the needs and dynamics of my user base—the Design & Research team—was a critical step in this project. I conducted four assignments and facilitated two collaborative workshops focused on logo exploration, template development, team values and vision.
These sessions allowed us to gather valuable insights, discuss design preferences, and define the team’s vision for how we wanted to function and present ourselves as we grew from the ground up.
Glimpse at the R&D Template Discovery Workshop
Brand Feel and Logo Design Workshop
Color Palette
Our goal was to design a color palette that reflects the core values of our team: fun, optimism, resilience, and inclusivity. Given that our organization's primary colors are emerald green, gray, and black, we wanted to infuse some vibrancy into our work that complements these tones. We drew inspiration directly from mood boards and experimented with several different palettes before settling on the final combination.
Branding in Action
Glimpse of our "Mullet Guide" brought created by team member Juanita Londono
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Glimpse of workshop design by Juanita Londono
Research & Design Team Design Sprint
Typography
Our typography choice is inspired by one of the tools we use most frequently within the team: Mural. With a limited selection of only five available fonts in Mural, we chose Proxima Nova as our primary typeface and Museo Slab for accents, striking a balance between readability and character.
