Brand & Editorial Designer
Project ECHO
Team:
- Jennifer Gagnon RGD Art Director
- Lenore Ramirez RGD Senior Designer
- Ysabella Ocampo Designer
- Bita Pourvahidi Account Manager
As the program expanded across Ontario and into a broader Canadian network, its visual identity hadn't kept pace. Materials leaned heavily on the global Project ECHO oval, sub-brands were hard to tell apart, and the team had little flexibility to produce the range of assets the work demanded. The brief was to build an identity that could stand on its own next to the global mark, feel modern without going cold or clinical, and scale across every format the team worked in.
The process moved through Define, Create, and Activate. Discovery covered ECHO materials from Ontario and international programs. Three concepts followed, each with its own story and motif. Client feedback pointed to a hybrid direction, which my team developed into a custom logo mark, a four-colour sub-brand system, and a circular badge device, testing across real applications before final production.
The final identity centres on a custom mark with an organic, amplifying shape, paired with a warm editorial serif and a clean sans-serif. The four-colour system distinguishes ECHO Ontario, ECHO Canada, ECHO Ontario at UHN, and ECHO Ontario Mental Health while keeping the family visibly connected. Photography uses framing shapes pulled from the logo, giving imagery a recognizable treatment across the system. The toolkit spans presentation templates, business cards, stickers, banners, onboarding documents, email signatures, meeting backgrounds, and a Mailchimp template, built so the team can produce professional materials without design support.
The rebrand gave ECHO a clearer voice in a crowded global network and a more confident presence with funders, partners, and the providers it depends on to grow. For a program whose impact scales with awareness and trust, a sharper identity removes friction at every stage of that work.