Creating a Brand to Build a Movement

The Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education (ADECE) knows better than anyone the importance of early brain development, and in 2019, they were on a mission to make sure Alabama’s children from birth through age five continued to be the best-prepared in the nation. We met with key stakeholders across the state to better understand the needs of parents, caregivers and educators. Caring for children—and helping them learn—can be tough. In fact, many parents can feel shamed and intimated when it comes to how they teach their children. That’s where we came in. We created Born Ready, a brand and a movement focused on raising awareness about the value of high-quality early care and education among parents, caregivers and educators.

The Born Ready logo spotlights the crux of the movement: parent-child interaction. The mark depicts a parent holding a child (seen in the letter “y”. with dots illustrating the figures looking eye-to-eye), as well as a smiling face. The lowercase “b” and uppercase were chosen to symbolize a child and parent.

We selected colors that hold symbolic or brain-stimulating qualities for children, and our custom typeface letters can double as emblems of facial expressions to represent children’s learning actions.

We developed a tone of voice and brand messaging consistent with the encouragement of parent-child relationships.

Children were born ready to learn, and parents were born ready to teach them. The Born Ready movement is all about learning, empowerment and parental engagement, and the brand elements—from the logo to the colors to the language we use on social media—reflect those values.