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UNSD Goal #4

UNSD Goal #4

UNSD Goal #4

Brandmark | Identity System

2025

Project Overview

This identity system was developed as a hypothetical response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education. The assingment asked how a visual identity could communicate the broader mission of inclusive and equitable education while remaining clear, approachable, and adaptable across different contexts. The subject presents a kind of wicked problem: there are too many possible ideas to represent everything at once, yet no single idea is sufficient to represent the goal as a whole.

The challenge becaome finding a way to hold these compelling and competing possibilities within a single visual identity without reducing the subject to an overly literal representation. The resulting brandmark uses geometric structure and upward movement to suggest access, growth, adn collective advancement, while the broader cisual system extends those relationships into color, patterns, and supporting elements. The project explores how a unified identity can communicate a complex subject while remaining flexible enought to adapt across digital, print, and environmental applications.

System

Brandmark

The brandmark brings the broader ideas of Quality Education into a singular visual expression. Its geometric structure and upward movement represent access, growth, and collective advancement, creating a mark that balances institutional structure with a more approachable character. Multiple configurations allow the identity to adapt to different applications while maintaining a consistent visual presence.

Brandmark

The brandmark brings the broader ideas of Quality Education into a singular visual expression. Its geometric structure and upward movement represent access, growth, and collective advancement, creating a mark that balances institutional structure with a more approachable character. Multiple configurations allow the identity to adapt to different applications while maintaining a consistent visual presence.

Typography

The typographic system combines Poppins and Lora to establish hierarchy, contrast, and readability throughout the identity. Poppins provides a structured foundation for primary communication, using different weights to create hierarchy, while Lora introduces contrast for longer-form content. The combination creates a system that balances clarity with a more human character.

Primary Typeface

Supporting Typeface

Typography

The typographic system combines Poppins and Lora to establish hierarchy, contrast, and readability throughout the identity. Poppins provides a structured foundation for primary communication, using different weights to create hierarchy, while Lora introduces contrast for longer-form content. The combination creates a system that balances clarity with a more human character.

Primary Typeface

Supporting Typeface

Color

The five-color palette creates distinction between elements while maintaining a cohesive visual system. Blue, red, green, yellow, and cool gray work together to reflect ideas of education, diversity, and inclusion while providing flexibility across different applications. The palette was developed to support both the identity itself and the broader visual language surrounding the brandmark.

Color

The five-color palette creates distinction between elements while maintaining a cohesive visual system. Blue, red, green, yellow, and cool gray work together to reflect ideas of education, diversity, and inclusion while providing flexibility across different applications. The palette was developed to support both the identity itself and the broader visual language surrounding the brandmark.

Identity System

The supporting identity elements extend visual relationships established within the brandmark into a broader graphic language. These subgraphic elements provide additional ways to organize and communicate information while maintaining a recognizable connection to the central identity. Together, they give the system flexibility across different compositions and applications without relying on the brandmark alone.

Identity System

The supporting identity elements extend visual relationships established within the brandmark into a broader graphic language. These subgraphic elements provide additional ways to organize and communicate information while maintaining a recognizable connection to the central identity. Together, they give the system flexibility across different compositions and applications without relying on the brandmark alone.

Brand Guidelines

The brand guidelines bring the identity system together into a reference for consistent use. The document establishes how the brandmark, typography, color, and supporting elements work together, providing a framework for applying the identity across different formats and contexts.

Brand Guidelines

The brand guidelines bring the identity system together into a reference for consistent use. The document establishes how the brandmark, typography, color, and supporting elements work together, providing a framework for applying the identity across different formats and contexts.

Process

Research

Research began by breaking down the scope of Quality Education and mapping the many ideas, issues, and relationships surrounding the goal. The mind-map helped reveal the breadth of the subject and identify recurring themes that could inform the development of an identity capable of representing a complex and interconnected topic.

Research

Research began by breaking down the scope of Quality Education and mapping the many ideas, issues, and relationships surrounding the goal. The mind-map helped reveal the breadth of the subject and identify recurring themes that could inform the development of an identity capable of representing a complex and interconnected topic.

Audience

Personas were developed to represent different audiences connected to the broader goal of Quality Education. Defining these perspectives helped identify differences in needs, priorities, and relationships to education, providing a more grounded way to consider how the identity could communicate across a diverse audience.

Audience

Personas were developed to represent different audiences connected to the broader goal of Quality Education. Defining these perspectives helped identify differences in needs, priorities, and relationships to education, providing a more grounded way to consider how the identity could communicate across a diverse audience.

Concept Development

The brandmark developed through an iterative process of sketching, combining, simplifying, and refining visual ideas. Early explorations tested different ways to represent the relationships identified during research before moving toward a more unified and abstract form. The final direction brought multiple ideas together within a singular visual structure.

Concept Development

The brandmark developed through an iterative process of sketching, combining, simplifying, and refining visual ideas. Early explorations tested different ways to represent the relationships identified during research before moving toward a more unified and abstract form. The final direction brought multiple ideas together within a singular visual structure.

Identity System Development

The identity system developed by extending the visual relationships established in the brandmark into patterns and supporting graphic elements. Explorations tested how these forms could be separated, repeated, and recombined to create a broader visual language while maintaining a clear connection to the central mark.

Identity System Development

The identity system developed by extending the visual relationships established in the brandmark into patterns and supporting graphic elements. Explorations tested how these forms could be separated, repeated, and recombined to create a broader visual language while maintaining a clear connection to the central mark.

Outcomes

The Quality Education project challenged me to translate a broad and complex subject into an identity system that could communicate a clear idea without reducing the subject itself. Approaching the project as a “wicked problem” made the process less about finding a single literal representation of education and more about identifying relationships between access, growth, opportunity, and collective progress. The final brandmark became a starting point rather than an endpoint, allowing those ideas to extend through patterns, subgraphics, typography, color, and other applications.

One of the most valuable outcomes was learning how an abstract mark can become more meaningful through the system built around it. Developing the supporting elements required me to make decisions about consistency, flexibility, hierarchy, and how individual components work together as a larger identity. Creating the brand guidelines also helped me recognize the importance of documenting those relationships so the system can remain coherent beyond a single composition. Ultimately, the project strengthened my understanding of identity design as a system of connected decisions rather than simply the creation of a logo. It also gave me more confidence in using abstraction when a subject is too broad to be represented effectively by one literal visual idea.

Want to work with me?
Find me on

512.418.6922

jjense80@msudenver.edu

Designed & Developed

by Jonathan Jensen

All Rights Reserved,

J. Jensen Creative © 2026

Want to work with me?
Find me on

512.418.6922

jjense80@msudenver.edu

Designed & Developed

by Jonathan Jensen

All Rights Reserved,

J. Jensen Creative © 2026