NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL & PEOPLE IN NEED
founder organisations with distinct cultures unified under one brand identity
audience groups with differentiated communication and interaction principles
formats covered by the deployment toolkit, built for teams without design support
Situation
Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and People in Need had formed a consortium to align emergency aid and long-term recovery in Ukraine.
They had complementary strengths, shared values, and a clear mission. What they did not have was a shared identity. Without one, the consortium risked disappearing into a crowded humanitarian funding landscape, unable to signal its combined value to donors or distinguish itself from its two founding organisations.
Approach
Working as a two-person executive team with Nia Evans, Insight and Strategy Director, we led the work from brief to delivery.
We grounded the strategy in audience insight, mapping positioning across three core distinct groups: people affected by war, institutional donors, and local implementation partners.
From that foundation, I led the creative direction, translating a complex humanitarian brief into a brand system with a clear identity and logic.
The name BridgeAid came from this process. So did the decision to build the missing "i" directly into the wordmark, a gap that functions simultaneously as problem statement, call to action, and invitation.
The brand experience work shaped every downstream decision: colour and typography chosen for sector credibility and warmth, design principles that ensured all communications carried the same promise regardless of who produced them.
BridgeAid Logo
The effort required to complete the message actively echoes the call to action to complete the ecosystem of donors + people + NGOs.
This intuitive and insightful concept highlights the problem and a call to action. It is also inclusive, inviting the audience to fill the gap and think of possible solutions.
System
The service design layer was where the brand became operational. The toolkit covered logo, colour, typography, imagery, illustration, iconography, and grid systems across 6+ formats, from desktop and mobile to social, print, and donor reports.
The gap device was not decorative. It was built into the layout logic so that every format reinforced the same narrative: something is missing, and the audience is part of filling it. Guidelines were written specifically for non-designers working in field conditions, meaning the consortium could activate its identity across fundraising, advocacy, and programme communications without returning to an agency.
The customer experience principles ensured that donors at the policy level and partners working locally received communications shaped by the same underlying messaging, adapted in tone but consistent in intent.
Outcomes
Experience Systems connected the brand promise, the audience experience, and the operational delivery into a single system that the consortium could own and run without external support, in a context where coherence directly affects funding, trust, and reach.
