The Climate Pledge
Putting Earth on equal ground.
Brief
The Climate Pledge is an ambitious business movement to solve climate change. It mobilizes signatories to take tangible, collective action - becoming carbon neutral by 2040 - to stimulate a green business revolution. They had a complex visual identity that had been developed in context of their launch, but it needed purpose, cohesion, and system thinking. They came to us for a distinct brand system that would allow The Climate Pledge to scale the brand in a consistent and compelling way to reach businesses around the globe.
Audience
The Climate Pledge targeted a diverse set of businesses, and there were four different types of business stakeholders we needed to take into consideration: Talent, Leadership, Finance, and Reputation. Messaging to each of these stakeholders was important for earning buy in to take the pledge and become a signatory. We also needed to appeal to other players in the sustainability space, such as press and NGOs who wanted to vet our background and credibility, as well as curious consumers who wanted to understand what The Climate Pledge is about and who is involved.
Opportunity
To create a concept and subsequent visual and messaging system that would bring clarity to the vision of The Climate Pledge and ultimately motivate business stakeholders to take action.
Concept
The world is out of balance. Once on an even playing field, Nature, Humanity, and Technology relied on each other for survival. Today, Humanity and Technology have forged ahead, leaving Nature struggling in their wake. We believe Nature belongs on equal ground. And it is our responsibility, our mission, to restore the balance before it’s too late. By bringing together businesses with far-reaching capabilities and resources, we can transform economies at scale. And through collaborative action, become a force for Nature, always working to bring equality back to our world.
Design
Our team defined and built a multi-faceted design and messaging system with an idea and a purpose behind it – including a library of collage-based images, animation frameworks, an extended color palette, logo refinements and extensions, a fresh tone of voice, dozens of sample applications, and detailed guidelines for how to put it all together. The result was a modular, yet organic, visual identity that balances technical credibility with vibrant optimism.
Voice
The Climate Pledge voice is always confident and credible. It can also push and pull different tone levers, depending on the placement and goal, to be motivational, provocative, competitive, urgent, or optimistic.
Derived from the existing The Climate Pledge logo, The Triple Equal Sign is a simple, recognizable mark that stands at the core of the new design system.
The Triple Equal Sign represents the vision and ultimate goal of The Climate Pledge: restoring equality between Humanity, Technology, and Nature.
The Triple Equal Sign can show up again and again in the work, much like threes show up in nature over and over, without getting stale. In fact it becomes a tool for the brand to establish instant recognizability across channels and has the flexibility to keep expanding for future needs of the brand.
The ripple framework is an expanded take on the three lines of the Triple Equal Sign to allow for even more flexibility of the system. It's designed to showcase impact and change, function as a base for infographics, or be incorporated into collages.
The final output of this project was a comprehensive guide that collected all the strategy, language, design systems, as well as a large set of hero images for collages into an easy to reference and use document.
