Animal Charity Evaluators
LOGO, BRAND IDENTITY, WEB DESIGN, SOCIAL MEDIA GRAPHICS
The Project
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) uses evidence and reason to serve people who want to help animals. Trillions of animals experience extensive but avoidable suffering on farms and in the wild, which motivates ACE to contribute to a world where all animals can flourish regardless of their species. To further this effort, they evaluate animal charities, prioritize causes, and offer resources and advice for effective animal advocacy.
Our Approach
ACE established their previous brand in 2017 – since then, they have grown and changed significantly, and deserved a refresh to represent their current work. We aimed to honor the legacy of their previous work while modernizing their brand and tailoring the designs to their wide global audience. Their brand needed to appeal to the scientific community, professional animal advocates, and the general animal-loving population at large.
Brand Identity
To express both ACE’s scientific rigor and their approachability, the brand needs to be both credible and kind looking. The personality traits listed here inspired ACE’s rebrand.
The color palette builds upon the historical brand equity of ACE’s previous palette, featuring a teal that has been brightened and saturated for modern-day tastes. The navy, gray, and white create a professional tone and contrast to balance the teal, while the secondary color palette creates uniqueness and friendliness.
The Logo
ANIMAL REPRESENTATION
This brand places animals at the forefront to communicate ACE’s mission, priority, and focus. The animals depicted (bird, crab, pig, fish) represent a wide range of species, spanning both wild and farmed animals.
LODESTAR
The negative space in between the animal shapes forms a star, representing the guidance that ACE provides. ACE is a trustworthy, reliable resource – a steadfast reference point. The star also represents a spark of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel as we look into the future.
UNIFIED MISSION & INCLUSIVITY
The star is also global – it is unified and collective, as we’re all working for the same mission for animals. Cross-culturally and ideologically, this star represents several things, such as guidance, knowledge, hope, freedom, and purpose, to name a few. As ACE continues collaborating with advocates from different backgrounds and social movements, the star’s “purpose” and “hope” attributes help represent the value and necessity found in building these relationships to help develop a broad, pluralistic animal advocacy movement versus a narrow, monistic one.
Website Design
We assisted with a fresh UI/UX design on ACE’s website, establishing styling that matched the new brand. We also provided advisory on the user journey and made suggestions on how to organize the content in a user-friendly and engaging way.
Social Media Graphics
Along with the brand guide, we also provided a few key templates for ACE to use on social media to keep their feed consistent yet interesting.
Icon & Illustration Sets
We noticed several areas on their website that would benefit from a custom icon set, so we created a style that aligns with the ACE core branding and provided two sets: a small icon set for charity categories, and a larger, more illustrative set to help highlight important content.
“Collaborating with Violet Studios to spearhead the rebranding of Animal Charity Evaluators was a pleasure! Working with a team already familiar with our work and movement was comforting and helped simplify the process of defining and achieving our rebrand goals. Since launching our new brand, we’ve had an incredibly positive response from fellow advocates, donors, and peer organizations. We’re proud of how much better our work is represented through this rebrand and are grateful that organizations like Violet Studios exist to provide cutting-edge solutions for the animal protection movement.”