Black Farmers Ecosystem  +  Cheeks
Microsite  


I. Initial Research Board
II. Gut Feelings (Design Direction Suggestions)  
III.  Timeline & Development  
IV. Compensation
V. Next Steps 



I. Research Board

I’ve put together a few images here with comments about how I think they relate to the BFE brand. Something to keep note— through the development process we’re going to have to decide on what the brand’s archetypes should be. For example: are we scientific? playful? professional?

Technical and clean looking things often give off an air of knowing. Might be interesting to combine these sensibilities with organic shapes and symbols.
There should still be a place for color to exist within the brand. 
Systems! Systems! Systems!
If we wanted to go the symbology route—we would have to decide on the symbols that really mean something to us. Though, to be honest, I think our brand would benefit from something simpler. 
This is a good example of a type forward logo that exists well over a photo. 
Rhizomatic networks! 
It’s also worth it for us to explore the idea of naivity? As a community gardener, I often have to work with what I have—hand-drawn elements can allow your brand to feel human while still being well designed. 
I was also thinking about the use of historic imagery—maybe there’s some things you can teach me about the history of black farming in the NE sector? Maybe something we can pull from there. 
This is probably our most main-stream directional possibility. Abstract imagery that evokes some clear form (in this case a tree).
Good example of what we did for we the land—combining imagery and fun text. The caveat of course is that it’s less recognizeable. 
I really like this direction too. It’s simple, and you can really see a design system begin to form from it. 

Other things I’m looking at

Black Farmers in America, 1865-2000 — LINK to PDF — I found this document that highlights some of the history of black farmers in america since the early 19th century. So far i’ve been learning about how important the organization of co-ops have been for many farmers in the south.  A part of me is hoping to find some sort of imagery through-line in history—maybe you can share with me some more about the history of black farming as it relates to the north east?

Nofa/Mass — Link to Website — I’ve been trying to find other brands within your spectrum.  A lot of organizations rely on imagery of farming or tend towards organic symbols. I do think it would be very interesting for us to take a note from science  because of it.  Something that tends a little more black futurist.







II. Gut Feelings  


A Net & a Web
our brand’s system should reflect a capacity to grow and change.  Eco-’systems’
any imagery or symbology we use should be rooted in the idea of systems and ecology. Representation
our brand should have a firm visual language that looks good on its own but supports and empowers the brands it stands by. 
I see a brand that’s more minimal and clean but still accomodating to the use of color and photography. I’m thinking this is a system of logos (think: one logo scheme but several sizes depending on the use-case) that allows your brand to be recognizeable and versatile but not overbearing when its presented next to partner brands and projects. Black Farmer Ecosystem almost seems like the foundation—the soil if you will—of many of its partner projects. I’m thinking of imagery that evokes organized systems within the nature of chaos. I’m thinking a lot about bees and rhizomatic networks for example.




If we end up moving towards a more minimal and futurist look—it will act as a nice contrast to all of the brands that we could potentially be working with. Again—I feel like we have to strike that balance of ‘looking unique’ but not ‘standing out too much’.




III.  Timeline & Development

On the topic of timeline—the process is as follows:

Kick-off Meeting (1-2 weeks), if you decide you’d like to continue working with me, then we’ll hold a kick-off meeting where I ask a few direct questions about where you want the brand to go. Since you’ve revealed that you work with a commitee to make decisions, this could take up to 2 weeks!  From this kick-off, the hope is we chose one design direction to go in and the development process can start in earnest.  
Sketching/R&D (1-3 weeks), after deciding on one direction to go in: i’ll enter an ‘R&D’ phase. We can set out a meeting to view and talk over sketches and initial direction, then from there we can distill imagery into neater lock-ups and tighter designs. This process sometimes takes longer because a lot of ideas can be revealed just by working on something.  Since this is my first time working with your decision making committee, i’m predicting this could take up to 3 weeks for information to pass back and forth, settle into people’s minds, etc.  

Execution  (1-2 weeks),  once we like a sketch, we execute it! From here, the system is built, we can add a week here for the editing process, and the logos will be ready to use.  

Brand Guidelines & Roll Out ( 1 week + ),  Logos should be ready to use after the execution phase, brand guidelines & rollout is a service I offer with all logo work. You can think of it as a commemorative document that aggregates our development process .  It can also act as a primer to send to new brand projects or partners so they have an idea of what your brand is about. I find it good practice that if you’re going to spend time figuring out the intention behind your symbols, we should back it up  with our work.  Roll-out specifically refers to ‘how and when is your brand going to start using all of these things’. Some brands I’ve worked with like to chose a day to ‘flip the script’—others like to flow in the use of their new brand assets naturally. It’s worth talking about! Since we’re in the realm of ‘branding’, most of what we do here is about optics.  




IV. Compensation

As a rule with ‘mission-aligned’ organizations—Our studio operates on a pay what you can standard. We understand that budgets are what they are and in the creative field—especially this day and age—we would rather work on projects we know we can be proud of. Without initial knowledge of your budget, what I can do is present a range of pricing that would be a reasonable amount of compensation for the work that’s being done. We’re also happy to get creative — splitting payments over time, or working out trades! (part of our trade for nefoc for example was that they flew two of our team members out to the we the land conference)

Cost Range
750—2200** USD + Tax
For the development of BFE’s logo system & Brand guidelines
*=market rate average for logo development between KC and MA
*=subject to change depending on scope changes




 IV. Next Steps

If you like what’s happening here, let’s decide on a compensation scheme and then set out our initial kick-off meeting? There we can talk about what images from this research board are resonating with your team. Or we can talk about going in another direction completely! No matter what, excited to hear back from you all :)








Sincerely,
JC Franco 
Design Lead - Cheeks