Brand Development and Redesign of MSF Brand Guide

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PROJECT NOTES: I felt very humbled when marketing guru Suzy Sotirias invited me to work on further developing and refining the Médecins Sans Frontières Australia (MSF) Brand Guide. This included specifying secondary and tertiary colour palettes, refreshing brand stationery, creating easy-to-use internal and external communications templates, and creating a comprehensive Brand Guide that is sympathetic to their cause and all possible brand executions.

All credit for the often heart wrenching and stunningly beautiful photography in this project belongs to the world-wide MSF team of photographers and personnel who capture the essence of their brand perfectly in every shot. Your images were amazing to work with.

The existing MSF logo, primary colour palette and imagery was already widely recognised in Australia and around the world. What MSF Australia required was a brand style guide that all staff (including those in field locations and employees with no design background) could interpret and apply to their particular communications. The primary red especially when used in large quantities or on a black background gave the brand a heavy and at times aggressive feel which did not fit the brand personality or values.

Further brand development and direction was required, along with a redesign of the MSF Brand Guide. The revised guide included: specification of brand essentials, treatment of creative brand campaign materials and brand name/language guidelines. The purpose of the Brand Guide being to help achieve consistency in communicating who MSF are and what they stand for as an organisation, as well as to provide a sense-check for all branded communications. Photography © MSF

Introduction to MSF Brand Guide. Photography © MSF.

A major component of this project was to specify secondary and tertiary colour palettes to add depth and interest to MSF's brand communications. The primary MSF colours are bright red, black and white. While these colours create striking combinations, they can at times be quite harsh; especially when dealing with sensitive issues like violence and sexual assault.

We felt the teal was an obvious choice for the secondary palette as it created a fresh contrast to the bright MSF red, while also symbolising medical scrubs. I added a deep marine and dark red/brown to tone down and solidify the brightness of these two colours, along with a neutral palette of warm greys.

It was still not enough to create the depth in the graphics that we wished to achieve and to provide us with a palette that would harmonise with the amazing and often colourful imagery provided by MSF photographers and field personnel. So instead of picking up the Pantone Book, I mixed the primary red and secondary teal together (literally with paint) to create a spectrum of in-between muted shades. Some of these colours leaned more towards the red and some towards the teal, while those in the middle of the spectrum were a very grey dusk or green. This array of colours provided us with the perfect set of tertiary tones to compliment any image we wanted to work with, as well as a broad palette for the creation of brand infographics. These muted, earthy tones allowed the primary brand red to dominate the overall colour palette given its intensity and saturation compared to the other colours in the palette.

Colour overlay and complimentary tone samples using new specified brand colours. Photography © MSF.

Sample of MSF iconography style using new brand colours.

Simple redesign of MSF stationery suite. Note: on all internal and standard communications only the primary palette of red, black and white is to be used in order to avoid brand confusion and complexity.

I worked with my creative partner Melanie Archer from Netspin to produce a suite of communications templates that can be easily distributed to all MSF staff, including those in the field. Fonts needed to be generic, style sheets easy to navigate and colour selections limited to ensure all communications would be on brand and easy-to-use.

Design of MSF fact sheet. I introduced small amounts of the teal and neutrals from the new secondary colour palette into basic external communications collateral (given these documents are usually created by designers). This allowed for differentiation and highlight areas in the text to aid readability.

The new secondary and tertiary colours were highly effective for depicting countries and regions on MSF maps to communicate their areas of concern and activity.

Design and production of MSF presentation folder to house brand collateral.

Design of HR field recruitment flyer suite that can be easily updated internally with new positions as required. Final Word templates were created by Melanie Archer. Photography © MSF.

Sample overlay text on imagery using the neutral palette. Photography © MSF.

Design of Weekly Update newsletter (distributed electronically), detailing what is happening in the field. The final design was provided as a Word template by Melanie Archer for internal use. Photography © MSF.

Eight page fold-out design for MSF's Service for Survivors brochure to create awareness of the issues of Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse in Papua New Guinea. This brochure became our hero brand project and was expertly created by Juan Pablo Gutierrez using the new secondary and tertiary colour palettes, and new brand graphics. Photography by Kate Geraghty | Fairfax Media.

Colour application on brand graphics and reversed out iconography.

Design of MSF Recruitment Pack detailing a variety of different case studies, qualification checklist and requirements, what to expect and other information about joining MSF. Photography © MSF.

Design of other stakeholder communications materials including Annual General Meeting notification and information booklets. Photography © MSF.

Design of a suite of interchangeable PowerPoint backgrounds and slide templates for internal use to ensure brand consistency in all presentations. Final PowerPoint files created by Melanie Archer. Photography © MSF.