National Association of State Chief Information Officers Rebranding

The Challenge
AMR client-partner, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, needed a new brand identity that was more modern and attuned to a leading-edge IT organization. It had been several years since NASCIO had reviewed their brand identity and the Executive Committee asked staff to bring a proposed branding redo for their review and approval.

The Action
The first action the NASCIO staff was to immediately collaborate with AMR’s creative services team to identify the client’s current brand and position in the marketplace. After several meetings to solidify the look and feel the team wanted NASCIO’s brand to take, the creative services team took over.

After reviewing several options, the NASCIO team ultimately selected an icon-driven approach. Being in the IT world, NASCIO needed a brand identity that reflected not only the many areas of IT that their members work within, but also the education, networking and research that has made NASCIO invaluable to their membership.

New branding guidelines were prepared and the new look was presented to the NASCIO Executive Committee. The new brand was met with a great deal of enthusiasm and was immediately adopted.

The Result The team selected a number of icons that represent the scope of the organization for static pieces such as letterhead and PowerPoint templates. Each icon was made available to all NASCIO staff in the organizations two primary colors for easy insertion into any piece being developed. New letterhead templates, note cards, email signatures and PowerPoint presentation templates were developed and also made available to the entire staff.

The beauty of the icon-driven branding was that it was easy to carry this look into any aspect of the organization – from a white paper on cloud solutions to conference marketing. The brand update gave the NASCIO marketing team the flexibility to depict any number of association/membership areas while keeping the identity of the client clearly visible in all pieces.

A sample of NASCIO’s icon-driven branding can be found below: