BAY AREA NONPROFIT BRAND REFRESH
A new movement for a nonprofit youth orchestra
San Jose Youth Symphony (SJYS) is a well-respected organization with deep roots. But as a nonprofit with a small marketing budget, their assets were scrappy and mostly created by volunteers. When they applied to receive pro-bono design services through Design in Kind, our team was inspired by their long history, impactful mission, and dedication to enhancing the arts in our local community.
Logo Design
Brand Guidelines
Content Strategy
Marketing Materials
Design Templates
SJYS needed a brand refresh that would balance the youthfulness of their musicians with the sophistication of a premier orchestral ensemble.
Founded in 1951, SJYS is one of the oldest and finest youth symphonies on the west coast—but all of their members are under the age of 18. Our changes had to help the brand appeal to a younger audience as well as the parents and donors who provide the organization with essential support.
Give it a tune up.
To maintain the integrity of their brand identity, we only made subtle changes to the SJYS logo and color palette—modernizing them and making strategic changes to enhance applicability across web and print.
We refined the logo to make it more legible, and chose brighter, more energetic hues of their core brand colors. We also introduced an elegant typography system and created an icon library that could easily be adapted to their primary use cases.
Consistency is key.
Without a dedicated marketing team, SJYS’s marketing materials were somewhat scattered—their volunteers needed a solid set of assets that are easy to use consistently. We created a library of adaptable plug-and-play templates to help streamline and strengthen their identity, including concert posters, audition flyers, brochures, and social media posts. To top it off, we created a simple brand guidelines document that will help volunteers understand and apply the new brand.
We are truly impressed by Design in Mind’s outstanding quality of work, creativity, professionalism, timeliness, and commitment to address our specific needs. We feel very fortunate to have been the recipient of their in-kind grant for creative services and recommend them highly!
SJYS completed this project with a $25K gift from Design in Kind.
See how we give back.
