Sustainable Business Network
Branding and a new website for the network behind the Rocky Mountains’ responsible businesses.
The context
A network worth knowing about.
The Sustainable Business Network of the Rocky Mountains is a nonprofit that helps businesses promote eco-friendly products and services across the US and Canadian Rockies: a diverse network of socially and environmentally responsible companies.
The challenge was visibility. The network needed to communicate its mission and its personality clearly enough to grow public awareness and pull more of the right businesses into the community.
The work
Mission, made visible.
The logo came first, and it took routes. We put seven versions on the table: leaves growing out of the letters, a full tree canopy sitting on the wordmark, a young sapling, each one in colour so the board could be judged the way it would be seen. Early routes leaned orange with a heavy outline, which read loud and dated fast.
The chosen direction did the opposite. The outline came off, the palette dropped to a single leaf green with brown and one warm accent, and the mark solved itself inside the letterform: the bowl of the n becomes a leaf, and inside it a sapling grows. A network of businesses, drawn as one small tree.
Then the site. Brand research, personas, wireframes, site maps and flowcharts, then UX/UI design and a WordPress build with Elementor so the team could keep publishing without us, finished with SEO and testing. The identity carries through every page instead of sitting only in the header.
The mark
Seven routes, one sapling.
The letter does the work. The bowl of the n is the leaf, and the sapling grows inside it.
What changed between the board and the answer. The explorations were orange and heavily outlined, which shouts before it says anything. The final drops the outline, moves to leaf green with brown and a single warm accent, and stops decorating the wordmark: the meaning sits inside the letter, so it survives at any size.
Out in the world
Where a network is seen.
The outcome
Built to recruit.
The new site improved the user experience and put the organization’s core mission front and center, engineered to drive traffic, engage prospects and attract more eco-friendly businesses into the network.
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