The Project:
Refresh the Project Recover brand in a way that honors their mission, their use of technology, and the historical significance of their work. Project Recover is a nonprofit dedicated to finding and repatriating Americans missing in action since World War II to provide recognition and closure for families and the nation.
The Challenge:
Project Recover needed to expand their brand to encompass all of what they do to educate the public about bringing home American MIAs. Project Recover is not a government funded agency and relies on donations to fund their missions. We were tasked to revise their mission statement, values, social media templates and brand guidelines to educate gold star families, raise funds and awareness, and highlight missions.
The Strategy and Creative Solution:
The tagline was revised to “Bringing our MIAs home” from “Keeping America’s Promise”. We felt that this tagline immediately gave context to what Project Recover does. We pared down Project Recover’s main values down to four – respect, humility, responsibility, and integrity. These four main values drive the tone of voice for communication.
New type faces Jetbrains Mono and Cataman are easy to read and also reminiscent of typed communication that was prevalent during WWII.
Three areas that Project Recover shares content around on social media is history/missions, technology/education and MIA/repatriation. We felt it necessary to expand their color palette from red, blue, and tan to feature complimentary colors for each of those subjects. Science, education, and technology content features blue and yellow hues which is a nod to their partnership with the University of Delaware. History and missions posts are done in coordinating greens, and MIA/repatriation posts are black and gray.
Creating graphic elements was a great way to add interest to the Project Recover brand. A triangle pattern, reflective of a folded flag, is seen throughout their marketing materials. A stripe element can be used as a graphic element or to represent data and evokes the American Flag. Other elements like a garland inspired by the POW/MIA flag and a star can be used throughout communications. This gives the brand more facets to utilize and represent the many areas of service.
Creating social media templates for Project Recover was a way to show the new brand in action. We built templates for each area mentioned above and made sure they were easy to replicate to keep brand integrity.
The Result
Project Recover now has a robust brand that showcases their mission, values, and history and equips their marketing team with the tools they need to grow the nonprofit and fund more missions.