Introducing Our New Brand: A REAL Refresh!
If you’ve worked with us, you probably know that we have a propensity for action. We like doing good work and going far, fast – so much so that we sometimes skip thinking about how we work or how we message the work we do.
This Spring, we decided it was time to think strategically about how we were showing up in the world and ensure that our visuals matched our values! As we have learned, a great brand is a welcome mat, an invitation, a gesture of hospitality. It’s like the opening line in a discussion – done well, it puts others at ease and establishes immediate connection.
The brand refresh was scaffolded by a thoughtful, multi-step process – research, focus groups, design, revision, operationalization – and centered around a key question: how can our refreshed visual brand reflect the past, present, and future of R.E.A.L.® Discussion? It involved voices from many corners of the R.E.A.L.® universe, so thank you to all who offered insight!
Today, we are proud to introduce our updated visual brand, created for us by Molly Morris Design. Molly is a longtime friend of and collaborator at R.E.A.L.® Discussion – she is the designer behind our student and teacher materials, so she already knew us literally inside-out as the start of the project! This context and trust proved to be the foundation for a winning design process, and hopefully, the creation of a brand that feels “fresh” – but still “familiar.”
Molly reflects that: “As a program and concept, R.E.A.L. Discussion just has vitality—it’s an invitation to something important, deeply human, and fun. As I set out to refresh the brand, my job was to ensure the visual components of the brand matched the organization’s spirit. This meant changes like:
- Livening up the color palette with some punchier blues and oranges instead of just navy, red, and white: this introduced more nuance and a brighter vibe overall;
- Creating a logo mark that literally represents the process of discussion and learning: the new logo represents the endless dynamism of the brain and the back-and-forth of conversation;
- Selecting a new font family that feels simultaneously academic, alive, easy-to-read – and appealing for people of all ages:
True to its name, the R.E.A.L.® Discussion team loves having deep discussions, so this whole project was an example of joyful collaboration, too! I wholeheartedly believe in R.E.A.L.’s mission and am honored to continue to further it through high-quality design.”
