YMCA of Greenwich
(also known as the Greenwich Family YMCA)
Fresh, branded, conceptual thinking and impactful designs that reinforced the YMCA’s community outreach.
About the project
For over ten years, I collaborated with Pamela Hearn, the Director of Marketing and Development at the Greenwich YMCA, to design a wide variety of print and digital pieces: YNews community member newsletters, campaign appeal promotions, annual reports, corporate profiles, program guides, a YMCA Marlins logo, the Greenwich Family YMCA first website, and a Renaissance Campaign Annual Report.
Overview
The YMCA of Greenwich has been filling the gaps and bridging divides since 1916. It is a non-profit, community organization made up of people of all ages, from all walks of life, working side-by-side to strengthen the Greenwich, Connecticut community. The YMCA of Greenwich’s mission is to bring together and strengthen the community through programs and services that build a healthy spirit, mind, and body for all men, women and children.
Innovative Design Solutions
I created a unique brand identity for the YMCA of Greenwich (also known as the Greenwich Family YMCA) which dovetailed with YMCA national brand guidelines. I designed many different pieces, including bi-annual program guides, annual reports,
a YMCA Marlins swim team logo, YNews Member newsletters, and a Heritage Society brochure. Each piece reinforced the YMCA’s core mission of building strong kids, strong families, and strong communities.
Roles
Lead Designer, Branding, Creative Director, Production Supervisor, Printer Liaison, Project Management
Team
Christine Hauck, Lead Designer, and the YMCA of Greenwich’s Director of Marketing and Development.
Key Projects
My goal was to create unique, branded designs that reinforced the YMCA’s brand identity and supported its central mission of community outreach.
Renaissance Campaign brochure
For the YMCA’s Renaissance Campaign brochure, I worked with the architect’s renderings and diagrams for the project. I designed the brochure as a foldout to show how the project would develop over time. I selected the best candid photos for each program and cropped them. I typeset the brochure to be easy to read and highlighted features with photos, bulleted lists and callouts. This brochure was widely used by the YMCA employees to explain how the expanded future YMCA would benefit the community.
Eyes on the Future brochure
The YMCA’s Eyes on the Future brochure promoted the YMCA’s Heritage Society. To illustrate the “Eyes on the Future” theme, I made the children impromptu binoculars out of decorated toilet paper rolls and directed a photographer in taking candid photographs of the children with the binoculars on the YMCA playground. The last photo showed a child looking through a telescope in a local school observatory. Superimposed over this photo was the quote “ What you do today, can make for a better tomorrow.” Lastly, I designed porthole icons for the initial caps in the body copy and for the bulleted list of planned giving opportunities to carry through the “Eyes on the Future” theme.
“We’ve gotten a lot of compliments about all of the new YMCA pieces, but the Eyes on the Future piece done for the Heritage Society was really a feather in our caps, both for the YMCA and for the community at large.”
–Pam Hearn, CFRE, Chief Development Officer, The Community YMCA
(Former Marketing and Development Director, YMCA of Greenwich)
YNews Member Newsletter
The YNews YMCA’s Member newsletter was my something I came up with. For the YMCA, I designed a distinctive YNews logo and masthead within a magazine format. The versatile grid format for copy and graphic images I created was adaptable for sharing new programs and events, communicating important health or fitness information, and celebrating community milestones.
YMCA Greenwich Y Marlins
Swim team Logo
For the YMCA’s Marlins swim team, I designed a clean, streamlined logo featuring an illustration of a Marlins fish popping out of a triangle. I extracted a triangle from the “Y” in the YMCA logo for the Marlins logo to be consistent with the YMCA’s brand identity. The Greenwich Y Marlins swim team logo is in the Marlins swim team’s colors of yellow and blue. This was especially fun project for me to work on.
YMCA of Greenwich Annual Report
For the YMCA of Greenwich’s 1998 Annual Report, I selected a theme of growth to represent the new future YMCA. The Board of Directors had just laid out a long-range master plan (the Renaissance Campaign) for its Greenwich facility, the expansion of childcare capacity, an Olympic pool and a large gymnasium increased family and youth activities. To illustrate this growth theme, I did original pen and ink illustrations showing the growth of an acorn into a sampling and then a mighty tree, as well as tree stumps in the financial pie charts indicating the sources and percentages of total operating revenues for the YMCA in 1998.
Website
In 2013, The Greenwich Family YMCA asked me to design the YMCA’s first website. I strategically developed the website architecture, its graphic look and unique dual navigation. All the digital content supported the YMCA’s brand identity. I selected a bright, upbeat palette and a magazine format with these sections: Greetings from the President and CEO, Latest schedules, FREE Y News Alerts and Updates subscription, Capital Campaign Update and Other Y NEWS, Monthly focus updates, and Did You Know? Visitors to the websites chose to view programs by age or interest. I created all the digital content and designed all graphics on the website including a YMCA website masthead, a Programs logo and a Body, Mind and Spirit logo. I collaborated with a web designer and the local newspaper, Greenwich Times, selected it as one of the best new websites.