People's Climate Innovation Center

The Stakes

People's Climate Innovation Center (CI), a Black-led network partnering with grassroots leaders, government agencies, and philanthropic groups, needed an identity that could speak to all three: rooted in BIPOC cultural heritage for its community, and credible to its agency and funder partners.

The Constraints

• No existing visual identity to build from.
• Three very different audiences: grassroots partners, government agencies, and philanthropic funders.
• The brand had to stretch across print, social media, and a website staff would keep updating.

Key Decisions

• A logo from weaving traditions. I based the mark on lightning motifs from Pima and Ugandan woven baskets, symbols of power and interconnectedness.
• Iridescent color. The palette takes its shimmer from two sources: shells and feathers in nature, holograms and microchips in technology. That pairing carries the organization's core idea: ancestral knowledge and new technology working together.
• A system, not just a logo. Spirals and woven patterns extend into a flexible kit for print, digital, and social, so materials stay consistent as the organization grows.
• A website staff can run. The site runs on a CMS, so CI updates content, shares insights, and promotes events without outside help.

The Outcome

The identity now runs across CI's website, print collateral, and social channels. CI came back as the network grew: event branding for the Vision | Power | Solutions webinar series, and a website for its National Association of Climate Resilience Planners.