2050 Strategies is a communications firm working for non-profit organizations at the intersection of human rights, democracy and the environment. Girton Creative helped create their first logo in 2019. With their unique expertise crafting and implementing multifaceted communication strategies that rise above the modern din of progressive advocacy and environmental comms, 2050 Strategies needed a contemporary, digital-friendly logo that conveyed authority and credibility while also retaining a sense of humanity and compassion. It needed to be forward-looking without being futuristic, and reflect a sense of hope for the future of humanity and our environment.
The final logo — based on a simple, spherical shape to convey the global nature of 2050s issue areas — incorporates a geosans typeface to retain a sense of roundness and “flow.” The “2050” appears inside the globe to underscore the firm’s focus on making the global future a better place, and is balanced by a series of rays pushing into the right-hand negative space to help finish out the “forward-looking” theme. Although a few strategic color sets were initially explored, 2050 Strategies decided to keep a black-and-white color scheme, which in its stark contrast and boldness, conveys a sense of confidence and authority. It is also a strategic decision for 2050 Strategies in the sense that it avoids the overused tropes of “color psychology” — a traditional and increasingly problematic aspect of design theory that maintains all colors have inherent alignment with specific issues and/or emotions. As we learn more about the individual variances in human eyesight alone, and become more aware of cultural diversity on a global scale, many designers — myself included — are rethinking these commonly accepted design “rules.” In terms of color, two individuals will see and interpret the same color in completely different ways, depending on everything from the relative health of their rods and cones to their cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, it seems that any “universal” declarations about the relationship between specific colors and human psychology and behavior could dangerously oversimplify the human audience of any given design project, and therein jeopardize reaching a target audience in a meaningful, authentic way.