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As the Omaha Planning Department prepared to begin its multi-year engagement and visioning process for our city’s next 25-year comprehensive plan, Emspace + Lovgren was brought on to develop a bold, inclusive brand that could span public engagement to the published plan while maintaining relevance in the decades ahead.
After analyzing other cities’ modern comprehensive plan brands, we worked closely with the planning team and other key stakeholders who would help carry out the engagement process. Based on this research and collaboration, we determined an agreed upon “checklist” to judge creative concept options: the brand must motivate participation; instill pride in our city; build trust in the process; make sense from community outreach to long-term planning; be easily understood across reading levels and languages; be actionable, bold and innovative; and focus on community-driven solutions.
While one of our team members was on parental leave, we added the creative firepower from local freelance graphic designer Jill Rizzo to help us with the brand. At Emspace, we involve our clients every step of the way, so we continued to work with the department through moodboards, logo marks and name options to hone in on the right fit and foster group buy-in for this important brand.
The resulting concept, We Make Omaha, checked all our boxes. Its bold but welcoming name and design keep residents at the forefront and invite people who may be disenchanted with public input to re-engage. The main logo evokes individuals coming together to create a greater whole, and its secondary marks bring to life the key areas of the plan, including parks, public health, housing, mobility and more with an extensive color palette. These secondary marks can be used as icons to denote the plan’s focus areas or as frames to create visual cohesion across various photos.
Alongside templated deliverables, such as email signatures, letterheads and presentation decks, we built a robust, detailed brand guide for the planning department to implement. The guide outlines rules and recommendations for logo usage, swag, signage, photography, colors, patterns, typography, tone and voice, grammar, and the latest industry best practices for talking about groups of people in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and more.
“The iterative process Emspace used to create the We Make Omaha brand was really helpful. Reviewing multiple moodboards and potential names helped us hone in on what was and wasn’t aligned with our brand goals. That process made it easy to recognize the ‘right’ brand when presented with finalized options. I always credit that with how quickly we went from concept to completion with minimal hiccups.”
