Features

Deeply rooted, branching out

In the charity sector, most B Corp or nonprofit organisations don’t have the financial resources to make brand design a top priority. Jenna Sents reports on how Tree Aid’s chance encounter with global creative agency forpeople turned into a pro bono rebrand that aimed to increase brand engagement and awareness.

Tree Aid was founded in 1987 in the aftermath of a widespread famine in Ethiopia and Sudan to develop long-term resilience in communities through reforestation. The international development charity plants trees in African communities and creates sustainable ways for people to grow food, earn incomes and protect their environment. Tree Aid operates throughout West Africa and Ethiopia while consulting in other African countries to grow the momentum of its mission, says Sally Airey, director of communications and fundraising for Tree Aid.

The charity prioritises community-led work as the essence of its impact. “We don’t just plant a tree and walk away,” says Airey. “We spend a lot of time making sure that the tree survives — that communities can really benefit from it.”

Hitting a wall

Before embarking on the partnership with forpeople, Tree Aid conducted research to gain insight from fundraising supporters, internal staff and prospective audiences.

Tree Aid’s brand identity had remained untouched since its establishment nearly 40 years ago, apart from a few small tweaks. Audiences noticed this. Tree Aid received feedback that its brand image was a barrier to its development and support, says Airey. Prospective audiences felt it was outdated and didn’t speak to them. They found brand awareness was low and the identity lacked clarity of Tree Aid’s mission.

The charity is complex and multi-layered in its work, making it difficult to communicate all the initiatives in a clear and concise manner. Tree Aid wanted to strategically blend the community-centric history of the charity’s work while reflecting its growth and impact.

“We knew we had that challenge,” says Airey. “But as a charity with limited budgets, we also knew we didn’t necessarily have the means to be able to do something that would create this transformational change.”

That’s where forpeople came in. After meeting at a B Corp conference, forpeople and Tree Aid formed a corporate partnership, including a three-year charity donation and a pro bono rebrand. The companies came up with a brief together to create a clear identity with a flexible design that would stay relevant for years to come.

Grafting a new design

James Addison, creative director at forpeople, wanted to create a distinctive look and feel that stood out from the visual cues of similar tree planting organisations. Tree Aid and forpeople created a solid foundation with audience research and set a clear strategy before designing a new identity.

The key goal with the logo was to represent the heart of Tree Aid: trees and people. The previous logo depicted a tree with its canopy shaped like the African continent, and research found that audiences weren’t engaging with it. The new mark simultaneously depicts a sapling sprouting from the ground and a person with outstretched hands, offering a distinct sense of motion. While the logo has multiple representations, forpeople wanted to make sure it was a simple and recognisable design — simple enough that someone could get a stick and draw it in the ground with a few strokes, says Addison. The revised logo is bolder and scales from a favicon to the back of a T-shirt.

“If people are proud to wear Tree Aid on their T-shirts, then you know you’ve got a good brand,” says Addison.

Forpeople also expanded the colour palette beyond a single green hue to create a scheme inspired by the environment Tree Aid operates in. Colours such as the orange of cashew apples and the bright blue of West African skies were added to the classic Tree Aid green.

Meanwhile, the typeface was altered to be more creative and accessible. It was improved practically so all characters could easily translate to French, since most of the communities Tree Aid works with are French-speaking. Within the Tree Aid wordmark, the ‘T’ cleverly depicts a hidden trunk.

Photography was taken from Tree Aid’s existing bank of imagery made by photographers in West Africa who volunteer to support the charity. Forpeople reviewed the extensive library and applied a strategic approach, focusing on images that – like the logo – showcase trees and people.

While reviewing the new design, forpeople noticed it invited a lot of empty space. Something was missing. To remedy this, the agency visited Kew Gardens in London. The team studied the trees that the charity works with in Africa and created rubbings. The resulting patterns and textures added an intriguing layer to the design, but forpeople wanted to take it one step further.

[The forpeople team were inspired by their visit to Kew Gardens in London]

The charity is all about thriving trees and thriving communities, so Addison wanted to make trees the design’s focal point. He drew inspiration from a documentary that showed trees could be measured by their electrical signals.

While at Kew Gardens, forpeople fitted sensors to the trees, discovering that every species emitted a distinct energy signal. The team noticed that direct contact – such as a human hand touching the trunk – created subtle changes. From there, they created a texture generator that moves with the changing tree signals. This feature can be used for a number of assets, including social media post backdrops and large event screens.

With the pro bono rebrand, Addison was not only creating contemporary designs for a good cause, but also had the enjoyable opportunity to experiment with these bioelectrical signals. Each pulse recorded provides Tree Aid with a unique, dynamic personality that evolves in real time.

Taking the leap

From a complete logo makeover to several major new design elements, Tree Aid was initially hesitant to roll out such a significant change.

“We were a bit nervous about it. It was quite a lot of change for us,” says Airey. With forpeople’s reassurance, the charity knew this was what it needed to support its work and grow over the next few years. “It just gave us that professional opinion that we really needed, the confidence to take it forward,” she adds.

The rebrand process took patience from both Tree Aid and forpeople. Implementing cultural elements into the design required pauses throughout the rebranding process to ensure the choices were sensitive to Tree Aid’s audience. The charity even had country directors take the new logo into communities to ensure the designs weren’t culturally abrasive. Taking the time to engage stakeholders and give them a heads up was important to Tree Aid, says Airey.

“We were very mindful with this new rebrand to ensure that existing supporters felt like it’s still that Tree Aid brand that they know and love,” adds Addison.

Tree Aid recently launched the rebrand and, while still in its early stages, the work has received positive feedback from supporters. Airey found major reassurance in the launch, receiving nearly daily photos of teams engaging with communities while wearing T-shirts featuring the new logo.

“Seeing that ripple effect internally, and then now externally, has been really special. It was well worth taking that step and making the change,” says Airey.

Looking ahead, Tree Aid is developing its next five-year strategy, focusing on restoring land and ecosystems in African communities while helping people grow their incomes. These plans will launch next year, marking the charity’s 40th anniversary. Airey says the new brand will act as a catalyst to engage wider audiences and boost awareness as the organisation expands.