A colorful, professional brand identity for Kenya Child Care
About the project
Kenya Child Care believes every child deserves to grow up in a safe and loving environment, preferably with their family. They facilitate emergency care in their rescue center in Kilifi, Kenya, and support children and families in need with food, medical care, education and support by a social worker. I helped Kenya Child Care elevate their branding by updating their existing logo and turning it into a colorful, professional brand identity.
This project was a collaboration facilitated by De Nieuwe Gevers, a platform where professionals can donate their skills to NGOs and charities.
SERVICES Branding, Illustration
CLIENT Kenya Child Care
TEAM UX design by Flavia van Tilburg, Website by Jos Mittelmeijer, Photography by Ingrid van Heeteren (Fotostudio Enjoy).
The logo
The Kenya Child Care logo consists of a logo icon and a wordmark. The icon shows three hands, playfully arranged as painted by kids. The original outline of the hands had a lot of detail, making them appear ragged and fuzzy when used in smaller sizes. I fixed this by redrawing them, giving the hands a softer appearance and maintaining their legibility in smaller formats. By slightly rotating the hands they turned into a friendlier waving symbol instead of an alarming ‘halt!’. Lastly I realigned the composition of the three hands, making it look more balanced without losing its playfulness.
Since removing the word ‘stichting’ (foundation) from their wordmark, the Kenya Child Care wordmark looked off balance. We wanted to fix the balance in the wordmark, as well as enhance the legibility of the type. We opted for a bold, capitals-only, font with a soft edge that matches the appearance of the icon.
Colour & Typography
Although appreciated by the organization, the original color palette had its flaws. They enjoyed the bold colors, yet often refrained from using them because of their intense appearance. For the updated palette I kept the bold red and orange, but gave them a softer and warmer tone. I also introduced a secondary palette of green and brown tones inspired by the beautiful nature and beaches of Kilifi. These additional colors offer a calm contrast to the bold primary palette, making it more versatile and letting those bright colors really pop.
“Jantine has a structured way of working. She really took us by the hand in her creative process, which is very fun to see! She listens well to your needs, and developed an insightful way to define clear goals for the project. The result is beyond our expectation! We were lucky to work with Jantine twice, and are very enthusiastic about the outcome of both projects.”
— Linda Kragtwijk, Kenya Child Care
Pattern
To give the brand identity that extra spark, I designed a pattern inspired by traditional African patterns. The pattern, available in all brand colors, is completely tileable and therefore easy to use on the Kenya Child Care website or in other marketing collateral.
