Be aware of the no throw zone

Brand identity

Agency: ChappellRoberts // Role: Designer

Tampa Bay is a city that loves to celebrate, usually in the form of parades, and one key ingredient of a good parade are beads. Those colorful, funny-shaped necklaces that fly from all directions are a guaranteed sight at any Tampa parade. As a city located near water, parade goers sometimes join in the fun by boat. The problem with beads and boats is the water separating the two. Plastic beads being thrown to boaters just fall short and end up spending  eternity in our bay.

There’s a simple solution that can be implemented that keeps the bead-throwing alive & well while reducing the environmental impact: just don’t throw beads into the water. It’s that simple. The environmental impact of beads being tossed into the bay needed to be at the forefront of this effort without sounding condescending or pointing blame on anyone in particular.

This brand identity has been recognized for a 2020 Communicator Award of Excellence, a 2020 Hermes Award honorable mention.

Any sort of negative connotation directed toward throwing beads during a parade will ultimately result in uproar, being misconstrued for a total ban on beads (Tampanians have a strong belief in their right to bear beads). When creating a brand for a social cause such as this, there needs to be an eye-catching brand made to get people excited to participate. The message needed to be about being aware of your surroundings, not a total lockdown on bead-throwing festivities.

This identity began with a color exploration. Knowing the cause was tethered to environmental awareness, the colors needed to be bright, fun and have a natural feel to them. Blue, teal, coral and a sunset inspired yellow were chosen and given floral and marine inspired names to remind parade goers of the surrounding area and the impact they have over it. Next was type, which needed to be eye-catching enough to be the main player in the word mark. We knew a thin weighted font or something that lacked character would drift into the background and not stand out. A bold, serif typeface was chosen so it can stand out and have somewhat of a timeless feel to it.

Finally, some sort of flair was needed to accent the word mark. A few iterations were made, from gradient waves to thin waves that took a backseat to type. Ultimately a simple dotted bead was fixed to the word mark and wave was made by cutting the name in half to juxtapose beads and water.

Working with the city of Tampa, we were able to gain direct insights into what the problem was and the ways to solve it. As far as design, we were free to explore any avenue which gave us full control over this identity. This forced us to have a holistic view and keep the brand’s use outside of the agency at the front of our minds. Keeping the identity clean and simple led to it being easily adapted to signage, social, and merchandise. With support from our mayor and our city, this identity initiative will help keep Tampa beautiful while still allowing us to get rowdy during our favorite parades. Project created at ChappellRoberts.