Blooming Birmingham: Helping Build a Brand Behind the Bloom
For more on this project, check out our case study.
As a firm that strives to connect our communities for a brighter Alabama, it was a privilege to help support the Blooming Birmingham project where fresh blooms across the Magic City’s downtown took root.
150 volunteers from Regions Bank, Protective Life, Landscape Workshop and Children’s of Alabama hit the streets last year for a coordinated landscaping effort to plant 5,000 flowers along 10 square blocks from Children’s of Alabama to Railroad Park. This beautiful landscaping serves as a way to brighten the families spending time at Children’s Hospital by promoting easy access to Railroad Park, one of Birmingham’s most beautiful green spaces. This also provides easier, more walkable access for patients, families and visitors, and supports the connectivity of our local neighborhoods.
Rather than recognize this initiative as a typical service day, Regions, Protective Life, Landscape Workshop and Children’s of Alabama wanted to take this effort a step further and develop a brand that would carry across all seasons.
In the spirit of fresh beginnings, we thought it might be fun to reflect on this initiative and share our process for helping to develop the Blooming Birmingham brand.
Why Invest in a Brand?
Many assume that brands are only important for a business or organization. But the truth is, a well-developed brand can help bring to life a significant event or cause. Because our partner stakeholders were willing to invest in the extra time and resources to include a branding component, the Blooming Birmingham brand helped establish more credibility, garner media attention, increase recognition and allow employees to feel more connected to this initiative.
Pick a Name that Connects
This project needed a name to accurately represent its purpose and include each partner’s involvement. We have found in most cases, simplicity always wins and creates a more recognizable, relatable name with “buzz-worthy” word of mouth opportunities. “Blooming Birmingham” was chosen because it speaks to what the collaboration is all about – bringing partners to work together to improve quality of life and help Birmingham continue to grow (or bloom) into a better place. Birmingham has the power to bloom through partners leveraging their greatest asset, their team members, to work together to help Birmingham become a more walkable, connected city.
Reflect Multiple Partners
Developing a brand that showcases four different entities involvement can be tricky when you are working with completely separate color schemes, but also want to recognize each entity equally. We wanted to effectively highlight the true partnership between Regions, Protective Life, Landscape Workshops and Children’s to showcase their joint commitment to helping Birmingham’s most walkable district, Parkside, become a connector to other neighborhoods.
Symbolism Wins
Our team tested out various logo concepts (including a map of the pathway from Children’s to Railroad Park), but ultimately decided a simplified take on symbolism was the way to go. We landed on four leaves representing each company’s brand that form the branches of a tree in the white space blooming out of the typography.
Seeing this brand on the hats and gloves of 150 volunteers coming together to plant a brighter pathway in Parkside was a rewarding experience for our creative team.
This is a testament to the power of partnership to connect our communities to build a brighter Alabama; we are proud this project now lives on through its unique brand.
Our PUBLISHED by Peritus takeaway is this:
The power of collaboration and connection among organizations has the potential to create something beautiful in our community. Next time you are in the area, don’t forget to “stop and smell the roses” and think of the innovative companies that made this happen and the brand that brought it to life.