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They say a picture can say a thousand words, and the same can be said for a brand logo! When it comes to brand identity, your logo is one of the most important design aspects. It makes your organization stand out and helps consumers, clients, and others recognize you.
Your logo, paired with other design aspects such as a color palette and general aesthetic, is the face of your brand. There are companies out there with logos so recognizable you almost automatically associate their logo with their brand. For example, you instinctively relate the golden arch with McDonald’s, the swoosh with Nike, and one-bite apple with, well, Apple.
Depending on your organization type, the types of products/services you offer, and your brand tone, your logo may be extremely complex or minimal and clean. Regardless, this logo should represent your company well and fit in with your overall brand identity and story.
Let’s consider a few logos from some of the unsung heroes of the organizational world: nonprofits! These companies spend their time and efforts bringing change and offering something good to the world. At PMF Creative, our mission is “to help those who do good do more” – nonprofit organizations are the very ones we seek to help!
These organizations are much different than consumer-based organizations that are trying to yield a profit. Nonprofits instead focus heavily on partnerships, advocacy, and volunteerism. Although they have humble standing in the hectic business world, their brand identity is something we can learn a lot from.
Check out these 6 nonprofit organizations who are killing it with both their mission and their logos!
We would be amiss if we didn’t start our list of nonprofit logos with WWF. World Wildlife Fund is a nonprofit whose mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth. They are most known for their work in conserving endangered species of animals and maintaining health in the global climate, forests, food, and a lot more.
WWF is also one of those go-to organizations for its immensely unique, and artistically beautiful, logo. This logo is quite simple yet plays on some intricate design styles, primarily its usage of negative space. At first glance, you can tell right away the logo features a panda bear. It is composed of a few unconnected black shapes that give the illusion of a panda.
This logo teaches us that there can be harmony between the company mission and unique design. The mission is supported by using an endangered species as the main focal point, and the design is simple, clean, and easily recognizable. WWF doesn’t even need to spell out its entire name in its logo because the brand identity is so strong!
Voices of Youth, a subsidiary of UNICEF, is a digital community that exists to help youth around the world share their ideas and opinions. This online community facilitates conversations around education, human rights, technology, and more. This nonprofit acts as both a community and an educational tool that gives youth the necessary skills to write, share ideas, and have their voices be heard in the world.
Voices of Youth knocks it out of the park with the symbolic yet simple company logo. Their logo plays a bit on the negative space technique WWF uses and brings in a digital spin. The logo is composed of 2 main elements: a giant V and the full nonprofit name.
The V itself is comprised of the first half of the letter and then a speech bubble that completes the second half of the V. The speech bubble symbolizes the voices that are given to youth through this nonprofit organization.
We can learn from the Voices of Youth logo that typography doesn’t have to be boring, but it can be purposeful. Instead of just doing a plain old, serif V, the logo designer brought in a symbolic element that sums up what the nonprofit offers. The V is so powerful that it can stand alone and be recognizable, but the company name aligned below the speech bubble adds a nice finishing touch.
Humankind Water, a nonprofit based out of the Philadelphia area, is on a mission to help solve the world’s water crisis. By purchasing Hk’s bottled water and other beverages, you are directly funding clean water projects all over the world. Since its origins, Humankind has been able to provide clean water to over 200,000 people globally.
Humankind’s company logo is the perfect harmony of minimalism and mission focus. As you look more closely into their mission as a company, you can see that this nonprofit has a deep heart for disenfranchised people. Their way of loving others is through meeting their basic needs. These two characteristics of the organization are summed up beautifully in their heart/water drop logo.
Alongside their image logo is their company name: Humankind. But what they do with the text is interesting; using two different shades of blue in the singular word breaks the word into two: human & kind. This subtle design integration highlights a whole other dimension of the company’s focus: kindness!
Overall, Humankind Water’s logo teaches us how to incorporate the company mission & focus through a very simple, yet effective, logo.
Free the Slaves exists to help bring freedom to those trapped in modern-day slavery and also advocates for these slaves through education, community support, and more. Their mission sheds light on the ever-growing problem of labor slavery, forced marriage slavery, sex slavery, and child slavery. Free the Slaves’ mission is a simple one for a very complex issue, but they are making a significant impact in this destructive and violent culture.
This nonprofit is branded with a particularly impactful and powerful logo. The nonprofit name itself is set in a simple sans serif, bold font that rests just below the main logo, which has powerful symbolism behind it. The logo features a clenched fist which is fashioned with a small shape on top of it, which makes the whole look like an unlocked lock. The fist itself has symbolically been used as a symbol of solidarity, revolution, and justice. It also represents a declaration of a powerful phrase: “we shall overcome.”
Free the Slaves’ logo is beautifully impactful and represents what the nonprofit hopes to do through its work: execute justice and promote freedom. Their logo teaches us how to add meaning through different types of symbolic images.
This Saves Lives is a nonprofit organization with a mission to end severe acute malnutrition in children across the globe. They do this primarily through the sales of their snack granola bars and other products. With each purchase, you are directly supporting malnourished children through food packets the organization sends to those in need.
This Saves Lives is not normally a name you would expect for a nonprofit because it is more of a statement than a name. This is precisely the point and exactly why their logo is so fascinating. The logo itself is quite simple: it is just the company name with a small pink heart. Yes, it is minimal and to the point, but this is one instance in which the text of the logo speaks loud enough with any extra icons or images needed.
This Saves Lives is both the company name and the exact description of their mission in the world: it is saving lives. So when you are eating their granola bars or other products, you are instantly reminded that you did not just purchase something for yourself. You are directly impacting someone else who is lacking vital nutrition in their life. This is also a statement to those around you of the mission behind a simple snack.
This Saves Lives’ company logo teaches us the impact of a name and simplicity. Although it is not as intricate as some others, the text itself speaks volumes and makes for a quite impactful design element.
Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States. Their mission is simply to end hunger and food insecurity in America through food banks, food pantries, meal programs, and more.
Feeding America offers a simple, yet symbolic, logo which is a symmetry-loving person’s dream come true. Their logo, like our last nonprofit’s, has a major focus on the nonprofit name. The color scheme offers an agricultural, earthy feel. The logo utilizes the stacked “I’s” to create a single ear of wheat, which is often used as a symbol to represent the agricultural industry.
The logo is evenly aligned, features great colors and symbolisms, and also highlights the nonprofit’s name (and truly, their entire mission) through big, bold letters. Overall, Feeding America’s logo teaches us that minimalism is often better and that typography can be modified to integrate image-based symbols.
What is it that we can learn from these nonprofit organizations’ logos? Here is a summary!
Overall, there are so many spectacular nonprofit logos out there that it was hard just to choose a few. However, one thing is true for all of these logos: effectively tying in a company mission with your logo is key.
If you do it well enough, you may be having people rehearsing your mission before they even read it on your website!
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