Green Star Schools

There was a real concern that the highly visible program Green Star Schools was not being linked to or associated with it’s parent brand, Eco-Cycle—successful and well known in it’s own right since the 1970s when it was founded. The k-12 zero-waste school program also lacked a cohesive visual identity even though it has enjoyed operational success and familiarity for 15+ years as the first comprehensive zero-waste schools program in the U.S.

The end result was a new family of logos that combined the parent logo—a requirement—with a unique, k-12-vibe-friendly, and thematically appropriate mark.

The color palette was borrowed from the existing parent brand which already had six accent colors, in addition to five primaries. The accent green was the perfect choice for the brand which opened up avenues for other sub-branding opportunities amongst the remaining accent colors. Additionally, the use of a brand blue, green, and brown were mobilized for waste-stream-specific theming (paper/cardboard, rigid plastics, and compost respectively).

A New but Familiar Identity

A basic but intentional brand guide was created to outline the new logo family, typography, colorways, illustrations, icons, and layout/asset suggestions.

The strange but lovable star character that has been featured on Green Star Schools assets for years was re-drawn and vectorized. Some new Star Buddy friends were also introduced to expand the illustration family and add some variety to the character toolkit.

Example applications were provided to mix up all of the new elements together in potential real world creations and scenarios.