AARP’s Livable Communities program supports neighborhoods, towns, cities, and rural areas nationwide becoming safe and fulfilling places to live. The team came to us to provide the state offices with a refreshed look for their 2019 collateral. The goal was to increase usage of Livable Communities assets to more widely promote the program.
The primary audience for these pieces is influencers within local communities. The collateral should inform, educate, and mobilize decision-makers. The secondary audience are members when there are issues of local importance. Since the current attitude towards the program was favorable, we kept the same messaging and core of the program the same. The tone of the communications is professional, intellectual, and compelling.
Previous postcard collateral with edit notes
Feedback from the previous collateral mentioned that the pictograms were cartoony and bubbles looked too playful. To solve for this, we made the imagery front-and-center and kept background elements to a minimum. The overall design mirrored the Livable Communities badge that appears on all collateral. We also wanted to give the states the ability to easily customize the text and images in order to tailor pieces to locality.
We presented the client with two options. Since our brand colors and imagery were already set in place, we presented different hierarchies for the content. Option one emphasized the Livable Communities seal, description, and AARP red, while option two gave the description and event information the same importance while using less red.
Postcard, banner stand, and print ads
Option one was chosen with the revision to remove the dark red. This change created a middle ground between the two options by keeping the emphasis on the badge while utilizing white space.
The team was pleased with the professional look and felt it had clear visual connection to the AARP brand style. They also appreciated the layout’s flexibility allowing them to add text without drastically modifying the design.
