Sixty-Five Years of Brand Equity Gets a Modern Makeover

The once vibrant Association of State and Territorial Health Officials was feeling all of its 65 years. They were tired and needed new life, so they decided to celebrate their anniversary with a series of big changes. They had new leadership, were moving into new offices and wanted to take their brand to a new level. That’s when they turned to Belmont for a new look.

This national nonprofit organization, which represents state and territorial public health agencies in the United States, the U.S. Territories and the District of Columbia, desperately needed new representation in the marketplace. They needed to evolve their brand to stay relevant in today’s world and to attract a new and younger audience.

The Highlights

• Updated ASTHO brand to coincide with 65th anniversary celebration.
• Warmed up logo and added contemporary touches.
• Provided style guides to firmly establish brand look

Discovering Who ASTHO Was Today and How They Would Evolve

Belmont began by putting ASTHO under a microscope. The Belmont team analyzed who ASTHO was, what they do and how they do it so they could determine their current branding needs. Belmont knew that subtle differences in the brand concept would affect people’s impression of the organization in markedly different ways. They explored the association’s core values and discovered the key messages and brand values, and they delved into organization by using brainstorming techniques and strategic exercises. They explored every aspect of the association from existing materials to interviews with the key players. Through these, Belmont defined the essence of the organization through key words, visuals and inspiration to evolve the brand in a relevant way.

The updated brand had to honor the past while it embraced the new attitude of the incoming president and the new direction the organization was heading. It needed to be more than just a logo. It needed to be a reflection of the change that was happening within the organization.

Merging the Best of the Old with the New for a Stronger Brand

Belmont did a brand analysis and was able to take some of the best attributes from the existing logo (despite the clients’ claims that there were no positive attributes) and combine them with new elements to refresh the brand. They started by warming up the existing palette by adding orange as an accent color. Then they played with ways to draw out the underlying meaning of the organization both visually and through message.

The research phase of the project determined that the primary message of the organization was “Advocacy for health.” In order to represent this theme visually, Belmont highlighted the “A” in the logo, giving the character dual meaning. Then the designers linked it to the “H” with an arc, visually linking “advocacy” with “health” for stronger impact to represent new horizons. Then the entire brand went through three concept phases to attain just the right weight for the letterforms and steepness for the arc. This fine tuning had a huge affect on the overall appearance and meaning.

Breathing Life Into a Tired Brand Revives an Organization

“We went from a stodgy organization stuck in the ‘50s to a much more open, agile, flexible organization and the feel of the logo reflects that. I think it has made everybody make the leap from the old ASTHO to the new ASTHO. The logo embodies the change.” Paula Steib, Senior Communications Director, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.