An urgent call for change.

After a century spent fighting social injustice, the Urban League of Greater Kansas City found a new level of challenge during the pandemic when it couldn’t host a live event to drive donations for its centennial celebration.

In the midst of 2020’s social reckoning, we needed to honor the legacy of civil rights protest and reflect the new imperatives of the Black Lives Matter movement. Our audience, a community expecting fair and equal treatment for all, demanded more than pleasantries and vague calls for unity. They wanted a voice as urgent and as desperate for change as their own.

We found our answer in our Idea: “Equal to the challenge.” By using equity and equality as our guide, we created a design system to honor the legacy of civil rights protest and reflect the new imperatives of the Black Lives Matter movement, combining key elements from Urban League history with centennial year branding and messaging as direct and on-the-street as the moment. With this system we created everything from a 100-year mark that builds upon the existing Urban League logo to outdoor communication that purposefully made difficult statements to create dialog and stir the community.