- Establish a recognizable visual identity
- Create consistency across internal and public communications
- Strengthen community recognition and trust
- Make County information clear and immediately identifiable
- Unify the County presence while preserving departmental distinction
- Build scalable standards staff can apply
- Future-proof print, social, web, and digital communications
DESIGN PORTFOLIO
Brand New:
Bryan County Brand Identity & Expansion
Bryan County has a rich cultural identity rooted in Southern charm, natural beauty, history, and a strong sense of community. What it lacked was a visual identity that consistently reflected those qualities.
Project Goals
More than creating a new look, the project established a shared visual and messaging framework that staff could use across platforms and departments. It balanced one recognizable County presence with enough flexibility for public-facing departments to develop distinctive signatures of their own.
Grounded in Bryan County's welcoming, heritage-rich, service-oriented character, clear standards for color, typography, hierarchy, and voice made official information easier to recognize and understand. The result was a practical identity system designed to grow with new services, channels, and communication needs.
The Challenge
Bryan County had an established seal, but no comprehensive brand system supporting it. The original artwork had also been lost over time, leaving repeatedly duplicated PNG and JPEG files that had become dull and blurry. This also led to inconsistent coloring across multiple assets. With no defined color rules, most assets were produced using best-guess or closest-match processes.
Departments communicated with the public in different ways without a shared visual framework connecting those communications back to Bryan County. Posts, advertisements, press releases, and newsletters needed to feel community-centered and trustworthy across every public-facing department.
A key aspect of the project's challenge was to create cohesion without erasing departmental character; and to give the County a recognizable, dependable public voice whenever, wherever, and through whichever department residents encountered it.
Core System DeficitsMy Opportunities
No established brand system
Create a new, unified County brand
Inconsistent public communications
Workflows with consistent standards
Wavering public trust
Create social practices to promote positivity
No unified County voice
Centralize major communications
Outdated communication standards
Modernize visual and digital communications
My Approach
Three main colors: warmer, brighter interpretations of the original crest palette.
Three accents that complement the main colors, add contrast, and stay within the broader system.
Establish continuity by retaining one color from the current website and one color from the original crest.
Three contrast colors that relate to the main palette while standing out for highlights and calls to action.
The existing seal and its history became the starting point rather than something to replace. I refined and brightened the artwork and recreated it as a true vector SVG, providing the County with a scalable master asset again.
Taking inspiration from the character and charm of Bryan County itself, I developed a broader visual language. I gave the original seal colors a fresh makeover by warming and brightening them, then expanded the brand system with complementary palettes. Working from complementary and analogous relationships created additional colors that work together while visually conveying different information, concepts, and feelings.
The guiding rule was that every color should feel welcoming, rooted, professional, and community-focused. The palette was paired with typography that supports the original character of the logo while modernizing standard communications.
With the base system established, I expanded it to give essential public-facing departments individual brand guides. Each guide draws from the main Bryan County standards, establishing enough individuality to make the department distinctive while maintaining a clear connection to the larger County identity.
Together, the system builds on one central idea: one County, one message, and one clear goal - to serve the community.
Initial Brand Guide and Departmental Sub Guides
The initial County guide is the foundation for the departmental guides below. Each guide documents its color sets, correct and incorrect usage, and the reasoning behind the system.
A Brand System Departments Could Use
I established a liaison in each department to contribute accurate subject knowledge and coordinate social and web content. In a shared Canva team workspace, I supplied departmental brand assets, rules, and reusable templates so staff could create posts and graphics without extensive design expertise. Required approval kept published materials aligned with County standards while allowing departments to contribute their own knowledge and activities.
Examples below show how departments applied the shared system and how design responsibility and approval were handled.
Emergency Management
Weather Alert Template
Designed by me
A reusable weather-alert system built for fast placement of changing graphics and public information while preserving a recognizable County presentation.
Emergency Management
National Preparedness Campaign
Designed by me with a department-led recurring element
National campaign information was translated into County colors, typography, custom imagery, and department language. The recurring closing scene was developed with my input for reuse across assets.
Animal Services
Event Promotion Template
Template designed by me; completed by department staff with my approval
The event framework gave employees designated spaces for current photographs and details. I reviewed each completed version and made minor image and brand refinements before approval.
Animal Services
Found Friday Template
Repeatable system designed by me
A recurring format allows staff to replace the featured animal and current information while maintaining recognizable framing, typography, and Animal Services branding.
Parks and Recreation
Boys Basketball
Designed by me to establish the style and tone
I designed this program promotion to establish a visual direction department staff could follow across future Parks communications.
Parks and Recreation
Registration Coming Soon
Created by department staff using the shared system
A timely announcement shows how departments could prepare their own information within the system. I provided approval and small refinements before download and publication.
Key Deliverables
- Refined and restored Bryan County seal
- True SVG/vector master artwork
- County-wide color and typography system
- Primary, secondary, and contrast palettes
- Color pairing and readability standards
- Department-specific brand extensions
- Emergency alert visual hierarchy
- Usage rules for text, backgrounds, headers, accents, and calls to action
- Templates and real-world application examples
- Department brand guides for consistent implementation