Our Brand is Our Voice

Authenticity

Authenticity is unmitigated self-expression. YEBO’s stories celebrate and share our unique voices, experiences and perspectives. Read about how our brand was crafted to scream authenticity.

The Future Is a Black Canvas

YEBO is a Denver-based media organization producing podcasts that center and celebrate the voices of BIPOC-identifying youth. PYD.Studio was proud to assist YEBO in its rebranding efforts as it sought to solidify its presence locally and nationally.

PYD.Studio collaborated with YEBO’s staff to determine how to move forward with a new and updated brand identity. During this process, YEBO was shifting their focus towards producing podcasts with the youth and communities they serve. This change is an important factor in creating a new brand, as well as ideating about how to present themselves to prospective partners and stakeholders.

Through a series of conversations and ideation sessions, PYD.Studio worked with YEBO to outline their current audience needs, their prospective audience focuses, and how the core values of the organization need to be dynamically woven into every interaction and design decision they make.

This case study represents the final presentation of the YEBO rebranding effort. Over four phases of work, YEBO and PYD.Studio collaborated on all aspects of the design process and related decisions, which included creative color mockups, font selection, brainstorming, value proposition abstraction, and artistic realization.

We spent a month polishing the marble, and now we present our sculpture. Enjoy!

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YEBO is designed around simplicity and versatility all while casually proclaiming a punk-rock, Afrofuturist, demeanor.

Shapes, Colors, Creativity

The main presentation of YEBO is designed around simplicity and versatility all while casually proclaiming a punk-rock, Afrofuturist, demeanor.

Abstraction of the YEBO outline allows for multiple opportunities for patterns, shapes, and colors to be used in multimodal contexts. T-Shirts. Banners. Business cards. Wallpaper. The sky is the limit. The shape of YEBO will be recognized no matter how, and who, uses it.

As YEBO expands its network of offerings, it will need to allow for additional labeling. Inspired by the classic punk rock logos, the YEBO Substack bar makes it easy to brand the various entities YEBO will inhabit as it grows.

The primary colors in the design embody YEBO’s core values, enabling all who rock the brand a deeper connection to the organization’s mission and vision. The colors-values correlation are as follow:

PUNK PINK – Authenticity is unmitigated self-expression. Our stories celebrate and share our unique voices, experiences and perspectives.
VICIOUS YELLOW – Community is nourishment through relationships. Our stories build strong, healthy connections between people to create respect and collaboration.
BLACK FLAG – Self-Determination is living our possibilities in the world. Our stories inspire us to take ownership over our own narratives and shape our lives.

Bayard is a loud unique sans-serif typeface designed by Tre Seals (founder of Vocal Type). The font is inspired by signs from the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom.

Outside the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was a close advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and one of the most influential and effective organizers of the civil rights movement, leading a number of protests in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes during the 1980s.

Bayard provided Dr. King with a deep understanding of nonviolent ideas and tactics at a time when he (MLK) had only an academic familiarity with Gandhi. Bayard was also instrumental in the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), proposing to King in December 1956 that he create a group that would unite black leaders in the South who possess “ties to masses of people so that their action projects are backed by broad participation of people.”

Check our our branding deck, here.