Veterans Anonymous is a non profit group working on several tech-centered projects to assist veterans as they re-enter the workforce, build their own businesses, and face a wide variety of challenges related to their service and the navigating complex network of government and charity programs available to them.
The Logo
A core piece of the Veterans Anonymous brand is their two character domain va.org, which meant that the initials had to be the focus of their logo. VA is a common set of initials, so I had to be very deliberate about using these letters in a way that a million other companies hadn’t already. They also faced the issue of their name being similar in structure to groups such as “Alcoholics Anonymous” and “Narcotics Anonymous,” which meant finding a way of displaying their name that disrupted that association. Using negative space, I created the letters from scratch as shapes rather than building on top of an existing font. Because I knew I would be using a vertical line between the words Veteran and Anonymous in the text portion of the logo, I merged the letters V and A on a vertical line, slanting the letters towards the left and creating more visual distinction from other “VA” designs in the wild.
Logo Variants
Once the shape was set, the logo could be used with or without its matching text, in full color or in monochrome, or in more creative ways. One variant used in the Strategic Plan document used a collage of images of veterans as the positive space, changing the feel from a basic icon to a banner-worthy image.
Hero Images
The website design they settled on necessitated large images at the top of every post and page, all dark enough for the white title text to be clearly legible on top of. This meant putting together a photoshop file that new photos could be dragged into as they went forward with new content, and training the staff on how to juggle various effects to get each new image to match the visual theme.