July 24, 2024
Designing a logo for nonprofit organization Oh My Jaw
Having seen my design credit at the bottom of the website yesIsaid developed for International College Counselors, women’s public health advocate Jenny Feldman reached out for help creating a logo and visual brand identity for Oh My Jaw, a non-profit dedicated to fundraising for and raising awareness about TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorders. She had initiated the process with other, more automated online design services, and was less than satisfied with the results.
Jenny has suffered from TMD since the age of 15. After being featured in a tv news segment about the issue—and multiple appearances on The Drew Barrymore Show in her future—she was receiving some attention as a voice for the cause, and wanted to leverage that into founding a non-profit organization to promote awareness and research into the disorder and its treatments. Combining her experience as a lawyer and music industry professional with her degree in public health, one of Jennifer’s objectives with Oh My Jaw (OMJ) was to sponsor a women’s music festival/concert, recruiting celebrity musicians to promote the organization and the event. The logo needed to be cool enough to work on promotional merch, edgy enough to honor the pain and struggle of those suffering from TMJ, but professional/palatable enough to attract supporters.
Moodboard and inspiration
In researching this project, I decided on a couple of design inspirations to keep in mind while creating the designs: Roller Derby and its promotional graphics, and Riot Grrrl flyers and zines from the 1990s.
Roller derby
Roller Derby was a great inspiration point for a number of reasons. First, roller derby athletes are fierce and ready for a fight—this was a great vibe for the brand: woman warriors geared up for battle against TMJ; second, the imagery associated with the scene is hyper-feminine, punk, and isn’t afraid to use darker iconography such as the skull Jennifer provided in the initial logo briefs to the designers and developers with which she had been working previously.
Riot Grrrl
The Riot Grrrl movement was a unique confluence of punk and feminism in the course of music history, and was an obvious touchstone for this project. Graphics and imagery of the era (especially from the movement’s iconic, eponymous zine) reflect its DIY nature, with gritty photocopied black and white photographs, brutalist typography, collage techniques, and pops of color where feasible.
Women’s health care advocacy can either lean Riot Grrrl or Lilith Fair with its marketing—I got the sense from Jennifer that OMJ’s vibe lay squarely in the former camp.
Iconography
In her briefs to the previous designers who attempted this project, Jennifer had indicated that the mark that represents Oh My Jaw might include references to the following images:
Skull
An exposed skull reveals the problematic joint in question. It’s a timeless signifier of struggle, a memento mori, and often associated with badasses like derby girls and biker gang—groups of folks united in a common cause with nerve and not a fuck to give.
Lightning Bolt
Lighting represents the pain suffered by those afflicted by TMJ (when placed along a jawline), pain managed by the sufferer (when bitten by front teeth), power harnessed by a group of determined women. An elemental force. Also, Ziggy Stardust.
Rosie the Riveter
A prototypical symbol of feminine power and unity in the industrial age. Often depicted with a speech bubble that cries “We can do it!”
Logo designs: 1st round
Informed by the research above, I created the following logo concepts and variants for the client’s review. It is crucial that a logo function in a one-color format, so I presented this first round of designs in black as proof-of-concept.
Concept 1: Ariana
Our first girl might also be named Madonna Louise, or Gwen – tldr: she’s an icon with a high pony. Ariana features an open-jawed skull (is she flexing her jaw in pain, is she screaming ‘oh my jaw!’?), with a Ziggy-Stardust lighting bolt down the side of her face. The type is graphic and compact, treated with a comic-book-superhero block shadow and anchored to that lightning bolt.
Concept 2: Jenny
Toomey, that is. Jenny Toomey was one of two lead singers for socialist 90s rockers Tsunami. Jenny might also be called Rosie (the riveter, that is); she’s a deep cut of feminist political activism, leading her girl gang against gaslighting doctors. The lightning bolt between her teeth is the suffering caused by TMJ, diminished and managed thanks to the efforts of OMJ.
Concept 3: Kathleen
The original Riot Grrrl herself, Kathleen has a severe bob and an even more severe chip on her shoulder. She writes angry song lyrics in her diary every night about her shitty doctors and her shitty life. She’s not defeated, though – far from it! If she’s forced to suffer, she will force the world to suffer with her until the source of that suffering is eliminated.
Concept 4: Yasuko
Yasuko (named for Melt Banana’s singer) is Kathleen’s pen pal. She’s captain of her roller derby team, and all of her teammates look up to her. She doesn’t take shit from anyone – especially you. She’s gonna pop an advil and head to practice – get out of her way, loser.
Concept 5: Lisa
Back before she found the TMJ message boards and stood up to her doctors, Lisa’s reality bit hard. But she got herself educated and found a treatment plan that worked for her. Now, she’s spreading the word and fundraising for research into new treatments for TMJ. She’s a boss and an entrepreneur, using the totality of her professional and personal contacts and experience to make a difference in the world – but not before she’s had her coffee and streams an episode of Daria.
Concept 6: Corin
Corin is repping Sleater-Kinney, but not the Sleater-Kinney of years ago. This is middle-aged Corin, who’s learned you can be an angry young woman, but you can also make it fashion, make it money. She’s still edgy and unforgiving, but she’s also living her best life in an archival Roland Mouret throwing back mezcal negronis with the girls at the next OMJ benefit. She doesn’t need a cartoony icon to get her point across. She is there to identify, not explain.
Logo designs: 2nd round
Jenny decided to advance Ariana and Yasuko to the second round of versioning. This round presented variations and combinations of the two, and began to introduce color into the mix.
CONCEPT 1: Ariana – revised
In our meeting to discuss the first round of drafts, Jenny expressed a strong attraction toward the Ariana design. She gave instruction that the lightning bolt should extend into the mandible of the skull, and relayed feedback from others that the ponytail was not discernible as such with the text placed over it. This revisions delineates the skull and ponytail mark from the text, and adding a a wordmark set in characters based on Stag, an impactful narrow, all-caps sans-serif with wide tracking.
Color Palette #1
Centering a bright pink that isn’t blinding on a screen, and complementing it with warm neutrals and a mellow yellow orange, color palette #1 is closest to the Charlie’s Angel graphic Jenny sent as reference.
CONCEPT 1: Ariana – boxed
This alternative version of Ariana includes heavy stroked boxes around the wordmark and logomark. Where the first version is a bit more all-purpose, I think the boxed version is well suited toward merch/gear, and would go well with a punk-rock Mondrian/Lichtenstein vibe on the website and in other marketing materials. Heavy borders all around!
Color Palette #2
In comparison to #1, color palette #2 is a more severe, monochromatic affair. A bubblegum pink and mauve combination is the headliner, with a cool charcoal/snow pairing taking the role of supporting neutrals, and evoking a dirty photocopy when used together.
CONCEPT 4: Yasuko – revised
Yasuko was the crowd favorite among those whom Jenny showed the first round of ideas. Jenny advised that the hair should be a little more femme, with the bangs further down, closer to the eyes. We also discussed the eyelashes, for which I’ve come up with a slightly less primitive solution in this version. The text here is in a display font called Sardin.
Color Palette #3
This scheme is based on the cover art for a book about the Riot Grrrl movement, and feels feminine, but also rugged. Purple and red are literally visceral colors, evoking bruises and blood. Warm neutrals soften the vibe and give this palette a slightly vintage tone.
CONCEPT 7: Yasuko/Ariana Hybrid
This version takes the aesthetic of Yasuko and presents a new skull mark based on Ariana. The type is adapted from Venice Beach, a font family by woman-owned design and branding firm Hoodzpah Design.
Color Palette #4
This takes a pink directly from one of Jenny’s reference images, and gives it a sunset peach as an accent color. Again, warm neutrals support the brighter accents for a low-key vintage feel.
Brand guidelines deck for a nonprofit organization
The hybrid version was the immediate winner. After a bit more back-and-forth, we settled on a final logo system and color palette, on which I based the following brand guidelines document.
Does your organization need a new logo, or a brand refresh? Contact yesIsaid today to schedule a free consultation.
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