Geothermal Rising
PROJECT TYPE
Branding + Web Design
ROLE
Art Director
PART 01: A NEW NAME
Geothermal Rising, previously the Geothermal Resources Council, came to us in need of a full overhaul of their brand. The name no longer accurately described the function of the organization, which is the largest association for geothermal energy in the country, and the visual brand hadn’t been updated in… a long time. Working together closely with their team of stakeholders, we brought the brand into the 21st century. Geothermal energy comes from the earth, and has the power to help save it. We wanted the new brand to reflect the scale and excitement of that core idea, and to help inspire those who may not be familiar with geothermal to get involved.
Renaming
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Using Miro, we conducted a fully virtual design-thinking workshop with the project’s key stakeholders to pick their brains and get them intimately involved with the renaming process. We ultimately pitched them several name options, and the board unanimously approved our favorite – Geothermal Rising. This name captures both the physical dynamics of how geothermal energy works, and the growing movement around this green energy source. Next stop: the logo.
PART 02: THE VISUAL BRAND
The final logo mark includes a custom icon representing the heat and power that radiate up from beneath our feet in the form of geothermal energy. Our team was proud to receive a Gold MarCom award for this rebrand.
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As part of our effort to introduce the new face of geothermal to the world, a colleague and I participated in a panel discussion about the branding and marketing of geothermal at the Geothermal Rising conference. We also joined a key stakeholder in giving the keynote address at the 2020 New Zealand Geothermal Workshop.
PART 03: BRAND GUIDELINES
The final deliverable in the branding phase of this project was a robust set of brand guidelines. It was crucial for us to empower Geothermal Rising to maintain consistency in its new brand going forward, both in terms of the visual brand and their brand voice. We created an 11 x 14 inch printed book to thoroughly document our work.
PART 03: WEBSITE REDESIGN
As the branding phase of the project wrapped up, the same project team pivoted to tackle our next challenge: the website. Much like the logo, the website hadn’t gotten much love in many years. We took this opportunity to reimagine the site as an inspirational and educational experience for new audiences, rather than just a tool for existing members. Keeping our goal of educating new audiences about geothermal energy top of mind, we created an interactive homepage experience that allows the user to sink down through the layers of the earth as they digest the content, showing rather than telling them what geothermal energy is. The homepage hero cycles through many different landscapes, reflecting the fact that geothermal energy can be used anywhere in the world, day or night. We were proud to be awarded a 2022 Platinum DotComm Award for this website.
Our team also pitched adding a totally new section to the site; an immersive exerience designed explicitly for new audiences to learn the basics of geothermal energy. We used scroll-jacking to create the illusion of the user traveling through a landscape as they learn, creating the effect of a game.