In early 2021 MCC released a strategy aligned around making its work climate resilient. This was a major announcement for the agency at the time and the agency’s leadership wanted a unique, standout graphic for the related materials.

The Challenge

In 2012 MCC’s designer and I decided that the agency would no longer create sub brands as they dilute the brand and diminish the importance of an agency’s primary visual identity. Demand for unique graphics highlighting specific priorities, initiatives and organizations within the agency remained high, so we created the concept of an “iconic image.” The iconic image would uniquely represent a priority, initiative or business unit but would complement the agency’s primary visual identity, not compete with it.
The climate iconic image had several requirements. It needed to:

• represent the four components of the strategy in one cohesive graphic,
• be a static graphic that could be used in print, in presentations and as a digital background,
• a graphic that could be repurposed into an infographic, and
• a graphic that could be animated.

The Solution

As I was developing the graphic, my supervisor suggested that I also create a custom color palette for it. To date, the agency had primarily utilized its standard, primary, and extended palettes for its graphic design projects.

The final product was a graphic representation of a tree with multiple leaves that identified the four major areas of the strategy using distinctive icons and colors (from the newly created, unique palette). The design of the tree made an animation easy and compelling and also allowed for it to be sliced up for infographic use.

Final Product

Organization

MCC