Great Reward through Work
When asked if I could join the board at Civic League Day Nursery, CLDN, I knew there was work to do. This was one of those feelings that surges through your body and you just can’t shake off. At that time, I was running to my job, facing deadlines and demands head on while trying to increase sales and production workflow for a local small business. Living in the shadows just down the street from CLDN allowed an opportunity that we couldn’t resist. A Child Care Center located just 5 houses away. Yes...Please! Sign me up!!! While walking through the halls during drop off I could tell that the center felt stressed. Directors had changed and teachers were the backbone of this wonderful organization holding it up. During the first board meeting I quickly discovered that all what not what it seemed. This was concerning to me a parent as this CLDN is a staple in the neighborhood with direct historical connections to the Mayo Family and an architectural landmark within the greater community of Rochester, Minnesota.
CLDN was lucky to be the subject in a master study program which helped identify key areas where improvement was needed. One of the key areas that needed clear direction was branding and communication. Communication with their families and community, branding consistency and a new website to showcase their mission, curriculum and the kids youthful joy. Fact: You can’t have a new website without branding. The backbone of presence and a place to tell your story in Civic League’s case. These critical points assessed and called out in the study needed to be accomplished on a shoestring budget and when complete they must be able to pass the “keys” onto to the new caretaker, the director.
The bright color scheme offers a suggestion of the primary colors utilizing the navy blue as dominant anchor color. The soft mandarin orange, dark pink and green shades ignite identity of youthful learning. Through updating the active child silhouettes we were able to launch away from the black and white phase into the full color learning spectrum. The childlike silhouettes were updated to be identifiable playing children engaging in action as a group. The initial letters of CLDN are modern letterforms recreated from a from a scanned graphic printed in the 1950’s. This font is not available for purchase. Anchored in block style, the logo set represents the structure of learning, the fundamental learning block of our education today. Learning (blue) the fundamental of our education through Exploring (Pink) our surroundings and questioning everything, Growing (green) featuring our wonderful garden for which our children get to play, Discovering (orange) each an every day utilizing our five senses.
Come see and enjoy Civic League through the eyes of your child. “Mommy, I’m home” and they would run off to their room or garden awaiting another the learning opportunity.