Raices Latinas, an initiative in McHenry County, IL dedicated to sharing the stories and contributions of the Latino/Latine community to McHenry County’s rich agricultural history, reached out to us to create a visual identity for their new project. Our goal was to design a visual identity and logo that expressed the connection between the Latino/Latine community, the land, and the rich history behind the community's contributions in McHenry County.
To kick off the design process, we first spent some time learning more about McHenry County, its major industries, and how the Latino/Latine community fit into this story. After we had a better sense of the journey and present of the Latino community in McHenry County, we researched the visual identities of small Latino-owned agricultural businesses and similar projects organizations that focused on Latino and immigrant agricultural history.
After a few weeks of learning more about the story that we wanted to tell, we began brainstorming colors and logotypes to express the rich tradition of farming, migration, and connection to the land.
We provided three design concepts to explore different visual directions. Raices Latinas decided to move forward with the third concept, with a brighter palette with green and yellow tones to convey the connection to corn crops and the land.
After several design revisions, we landed on a color palette that featured earthy tones with vibrant orange, yellow and purple highlights and refined the details of the logomark. Once we landed on the final color palette, typography and logomark, we created a style guide for Raices Latinas and designed accompanying social media graphic templates and print stationary.
