A behind-the-scenes look at building a new visual brand identity
When Harvard University Employees Credit Union changed their charter, the financial institution needed to expand their appeal to incorporate a wide-ranging audience, including employees, students, alumni, and affiliated partners. Like many other Special Employee Group (SEG) based credit unions, charter change can certainly set the stage for expansion and growth, but widening reach to new audiences necessitates a needed shift at a brand level, as well.
Harvard Federal Credit Union has realized the benefits of strong new brand positioning following charter change. The refreshed brand successfully honors their 85-year legacy while also embracing the future, with a bold brand that creates a bridge to speak to new audiences. The brand strategy focused on the position “Impact for Life” as the DNA at the heart of the brand – representing a banking partner for members to build a strong financial future in their life, wherever they may go. The brand is necessarily vibrant, diverse, and inclusive, with members spanning across all life ages and stages.
At the same time, Harvard University itself has a very distinct brand in the marketplace. Honoring both the Harvard legacy and the credit union’s more expansive membership would require a delicate balance. While the core logo itself needed to link back to the overall Harvard brand in relevant ways, where the credit union brand begins to really take on a life of its own is in the brand identity system – which captures the spirit, look and feel, and language of the new Harvard FCU brand. These meaningful elements infusing all parts of the visual system include the brand’s colors, typography, photography, iconography, and imagery.
Brand principles guide all of the work within the system, both in the messaging and the visual expression. Everything the brand team created is based on the guiding principles of clear & strong, wholehearted, and ambitious.
The Harvard Federal Credit Union brand logo leverages a column that’s reminiscent of Harvard University’s architecture. The credit union was committed to carrying over this component from their prior branding to the new branding. Added to the column is a crest and a shield, which speaks to other iconography associated with the university and grounds the logo with the same kind of visual language for which the school is associated. From the beginning, the credit union’s team said that although the logo would ultimately be more straightforward, they wanted to push into new areas with other parts the design system.
Visually, there are two primary colors in the logo – a more grounded burgundy, reminiscent of the traditional Harvard Crimson, and a brighter red to balance it out. Fresh secondary colors provide a bold vibrancy and offer flexibility within the design system. To ensure the color palette feels ownable, each color is named after a square within the Cambridge or Harvard area, resulting in names such as Porter Rose, Kendall Lavender, and Central Cyan.
Beyond the logo and color palette, the rest of the system is filled out to enhance visual interest and translate the brand into multiple applications, like ads for digital, print, or billboards. This visual style includes simplified shapes taken from within the logo and pulled forward. This visual thread runs throughout the system, serving as a signal to invoke the master brand.
The idea for the bracket shapes was to focus on a small impactful moment and use a visual cue to amplify the occasion. These brackets can be used to augment photography and tie the visual expression back to the brand without having to repeatedly lean on the logo.
The shapes give a fresh emotion to the brand, and in multiple applications help everything come together cohesively. The flexibility of the shapes and brackets also spawned ideas for additional variables within the visual system, including patterns, iconography and emotes.
For brand photography, the imagery is direct and bold. Portraits of people looking to camera reads as very approachable, optimistic and positive. Studio portraits could be easily silhouetted from the background and applied to the brand’s shapes. If the credit union wants to use more lifestyle-oriented photography, then they can leverage the brand brackets.
Another interesting element of the system is the brand objects that populate print and web applications. These brand objects were developed through a creative use of AI. The brand team took one of the iconic towers from the Harvard architectural style and used AI prompts to create something akin to a souvenir coin bank. A bank of objects came with the brand platform, but the AI process and prompts were also shared with team at Harvard FCU, so they can continue iterating on the objects they use for the brand going forward.
Ultimately, all of the elements come together to create a compelling visual identity and friendly, approachable brand made to have an Impact for Life. For other SEG-based credit unions facing some of the same challenges, Harvard Federal Credit Union’s story provides a best practices approach for institutions wanting to refresh their visual identity to appeal to a broad range of eligible members.
To learn more about brand and marketing strategies that can get your financial institution ready for growth, or to speak with one of Adrenaline’s experts, contact us today.
Adrenaline is an end-to-end brand experience company serving the financial industry. We move brands and businesses ahead by delivering on every aspect of their experience across digital and physical channels, from strategy through implementation. Our multi-disciplinary team works with leadership to advise on purpose, position, culture, and retail growth strategies. We create brands people love and engage audiences from employees to customers with story-led design and insights-driven marketing; and we design and build transformative brand experiences across branch networks, leading the construction and implementation of physical spaces that drive business advantage and make the brand experience real.
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