- our work
Identity design for a transforming healthcare system
The Partner
Naples Comprehensive Health is an independent, non-profit healthcare system in southwest Florida boldly pursuing their mission to help people live happier, healthier and longer lives. Through clinical advancements and visionary leadership, NCH is advancing steadily, and The Partnership has further propelled the brand.
Opportunity
To capture this transformative period of time, The Partnership initiated a comprehensive rebrand for the entire system, from research to execution in market. This case study reflects the identity design portion of the project.
Approach
Our Creative team is all about asking great questions and engaging in dialogue between our Strategy and Account teams. They reviewed user personas, digested key research insights and got briefed on market positioning, value propositions and the new messaging of the healthcare system. So when it came to creating the new brand image, our creative team had considered all the ways the brand needed to communicate to its various audiences.
To define the design approach, mood boards were created to determine various visual design perspectives. They included a range of colors, patterns, textures, fonts, and images that could express NCH’s new brand personality. Final options were socialized with key constituents within the healthcare system from Board members to nurses to community organizers. Locking down a style direction was a critical milestone of our brand building.
Refinement
With the chosen style set, the team decided on art direction and created logo concepts. The concepts were inspired by the new brand strategy of boldly leaning into the competency of a transforming healthcare system.
Multiple concepts from multiple designers were considered, critiqued and developed. Evaluation was within the lens of the new brand strategy. The concepts intentionally didn’t feature any visual triggers or prompts that are typical for a medical theme, instead focusing on a modern and minimal style.
Our designer Lindsay Muncy created the winning option (and the crowd favorite). The Visionary Violet logo conveys the strong message of boldness, confidence and care. And the gradient adds depth and implies movement making the logo more dynamic. That movement is a wonderful nod to the original “swoosh” in the decades old logo.
Building a Brand System
With the logo lockup in place, the team created the entire brand system and guidelines. A microsite with logo usage, brand overview, templates was created for the general public to ensure brand consistency and enablement.
To increase the logo’s flexibility for different visual design goals, the design team developed a set of variations accommodating color, print, digital, physical signage, video and animated. A black-and-white version and variants for light and dark backgrounds are available. Graphical elements called “thumbprints” were created to express the shared sense of humanity in the brand and the patient care and passion in NCH’s DNA.
Impact
Excellent logo design doesn’t work if designed in a creative vacuum. Our team considered all applications of where and how the brand will display, how it will be used in physical and digital environments and how it extends into services lines, physician groups and strategic partnerships. Different service lines were assigned certain colors from the palette and sub brand logos created.
The new brand represents a modern, dynamic image that embodies NCH’s vision for the future of healthcare. The updated design features a bold, vibrant color palette, and a stylized “NCH” that conveys the organization’s sophistication while also giving a nod to its past.
The effort that went into this identity design is proof that developing an attractive and informative brand identity is more than just logo design. It demonstrates how a strong brand can help differentiate from competitors, build trust with patients, make them feel like they are in good hands, and improve overall patient outcomes.
