Rebrand
This is one of my favorite projects to have ever worked on: the LCRA Parks rebrand. I was instrumental in bringing the brand to a place that speaks to the parks themselves: their colors, textures, and terrains. Before, we didn't have any cohesion in fonts, colors, tone, or any other branding element aside from the logo, but even that was used in random ways. Here is the rebrand journey.
Microsoft Parks, Inc.
LCRA Parks is a small division of the utilitarian company, Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA). This means that we answered to the corporate communications (Comms) team, which lives and breathes legalities, safety, and rigid parameters. The agency came to us with this branding.
Immediately, I knew that wasn't LCRA Parks. It was a Microsoft-washed version of any generic outdoor space. You could put any logo on that branding, and it would kinda suffice. It was them speaking to corporate, not to our parks.
Texas Terrain
LCRA Parks is comprised of over 40 parks from San Saba, Texas, through the beautiful hill country, across the loblolly pines, and through the Gulf Coast in Matagorda Bay. The branding needed to speak to that. Not to mention, the headquarters was positioned in Austin, Texas. Hello?? Keep Austin Weird; yes, but let's keep our parks fun, funky, and embracing their natural quirks & perks, too!
Solution: I explained the lack of personality, authenticity, original branding, and how we wanted to get back to the terrain. I sent them images of the actual parks and pulled color swatches from the landscapes themselves.
(These color swatches later turned into a seasonal social media series.)
One with the Earth
We finished strong with branding that spoke to the true "nature" of the parks. Colors and textures across the actual terrain. You can see the inspiration from the swatches I created pulled into the final colors.
We ended up with 4 color sets speaking to our waterfronts, skylines, nature hikes, and wildlife, plus some base colors. We included textures from our parks and eventually icons made with original illustrations to represent park activities.
Parks Gone Wild
From there, we fleshed out the tone, personality, fonts, icons, and later, a full website revamp. See it here!
The LCRA Parks branding is now a genuine experience of the parks before ever stepping foot in one. I had such a blast bringing that to life. It's one of the projects I am most proud of and passionate about.
Now, get out there.
