Research + Insights

Activities included a review of existing primary and secondary research, analysis, and documentation, performing a high-level comparator audit and conducting in-depth stakeholder interviews with residents, realtors, contractors, and Village employees and trustees. The result was an authentic view into the special qualities of the Village and why people choose to live there. From there, we built the brand narrative.

Rebrand + Brand Narrative

Early on, Riverwoods sought an opportunity to become the leading preservation community in Illinois. But no one really knew what the Village stood for or what it meant to live there. There were also preservation efforts in place that needed to be communicated. There was no brand, communications, or communication plan.

The Village needed a brand platform to support the goals and objectives behind The Village of Riverwoods’ strategic plan and furthermore to establish a true definition of what it means to live in Riverwoods to those who live there and to perspective residents.

Our job was to help define Riverwoods. To truly differentiate, The Village of Riverwoods needed to look beyond the generic stereotypes of residential locales to provide a point of view that resonates with the real reasons why residents choose to live there and why communities and businesses invest in Riverwoods.

Logo + Visual Identity

Based on research, we identified the gaps and created a message map to help position Riverwoods in a way that aligns with the strategic plan but that also led them towards achieving their brand goals.

Early sketches of the logomark pulled interest into the privacy and connectivity of the community. Intertwining trees and forest details shone through for the Riverwoods stakeholders.

The final developed identity is a distillation of the complex shapes of a forest into four simple bars that remain scaleable for all use cases. The wordmark was built using Gloucester stacked with Avenir, creating a clean and inviting identity.

Color Palette

In the spirit of preservation and embracing the woodlands, we created a 4-season color palette for the Village. We built guidelines around using this palette to change the visual color palette of the website and social media platforms with the change of each season.

Brand Activation

We established visual brand guidelines for the Village to use when creating signage, print, and digital assets.

Based on the strategic plan and Village goals, we needed to create messaging to different audiences to ensure that we provided them a point of view that was reflective of the Villages’ preservation efforts. We needed to create content for a few audiences: residents, prospective residents, real estate agents, contractors, and businesses.