Nourishing Chicago: A Visual Identity Rooted in Community

📌 Brief

Create a full brand identity and visual ecosystem for Windy City Harvest, an initiative focused on building sustainable food systems across Chicago through community gardens, education, and mentorship. The branding needed to feel trustworthy, joyful, and deeply rooted in the community, while still professional enough to attract partners, donors, and volunteers. Deliverables included a logo system, color palette, print materials, social templates, signage, and website layouts.

🤌🏽 Target Audience

To engage Windy City Harvest’s diverse audience, the brand had to appeal to both hyperlocal community members and institutional partners. That meant designing for families in underserved neighborhoods, curious volunteers, urban farming advocates, and donors looking to make a visible impact. Visually, the brand had to strike a balance: grounded and trustworthy for city partnerships and grants, but warm and vibrant enough to feel like it belongs on a kid’s lunchbox or a market tote.

👨🏽‍🎤 Creative Process

This was a brand where the mission was the muse. The mark—a four-leaf symbol with one petal in pink—represents both nature and people, subtly nodding to equity, growth, and unity. The color palette evokes soil, freshness, and possibility. From there, I leaned into bold, rounded type and used familiar Chicago visual cues (like the city’s red star) to anchor the brand in place.

To maintain accessibility and scalability, everything was built with flexibility in mind: we created an identity that worked just as well on an apron or a bus shelter as it did in a social post. The tone of voice was kept inviting and neighborly, emphasizing action and togetherness without slipping into nonprofit cliché.

🛼 Creative Challenges

The biggest challenge? Making the identity feel both grassroots and credible. It had to speak to local families and city stakeholders in the same breath. That meant stripping away anything overly trendy and focusing on timeless, accessible design. The campaign also required building a cohesive brand experience across dozens of mediums, from donation forms to community signage; each needed to be instantly recognizable, legible, and flexible enough for future initiatives.

⚡️ Visual Design

The design system is anchored in organic shapes, intentional whitespace, and messaging that puts community first. Collateral like flyers and brochures use curved color blocks and high-impact photography to tell human stories. Every piece was designed to feel fresh from the garden: simple, vibrant, and intentional. The result is a unified brand that feels equally at home at a farmer’s market, on a city billboard, or in the hands of a volunteer.