The Como Friends rebrand is where I learned what brand strategy really meant. I worked alongside Known, a strategist and designer partnership out of Minneapolis who became my brand mentors. They did not just build style guides. They built full brand strategies with visual systems woven in, and the first half of every brand book was devoted to the thinking behind the design. Watching that process reshaped how I understand the work, and much of what School ID does today is modeled on what I learned from them. The rebrand also did something bigger for Como Friends: it brought an intentional marketing function to the organization, largely through me, and showed the whole team that brand was not just visuals but part of what everyone does.
Como Friends Rebrand
The Work That Shaped How I Think About Brand
Como Friends Insider Newsletter
The Insider was Como Friends’ flagship print piece and the one publication donors looked forward to most. Produced quarterly as a magazine, it told the story of how Como Friends helped the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory thrive.
That made it the natural place to introduce the new brand. Our core supporters were already reading it closely, so it was where a refreshed look and voice would land with the most meaning. I led with the Insider on purpose.
The new direction emphasized ownership. Como Friends was not just supporting the campus, it was driving real, measurable improvements, and the design needed to say so. I brought in a large-scale Como Friends ring watermark and a stronger brand presence throughout. The Como Insider became the Como Friends Insider, a small change that made authorship clear and reinforced that donor impact flows through Como Friends.
Everything Had to be Updated
A rebrand this size touches everything. I updated it all: membership cards, membership promo posters, and the other donation programs. Como Friends also runs the gift store, so that meant the storefront, the price tags, and in-store promotions too.
The work reached into digital as well. I redesigned the organization’s HTML newsletter templates and partnered with a team of developers to build the first ever Como Friends website, both aligned fully with the new brand.
A Unified Events Visual System
Before the rebrand, every event and donor campaign tended to go its own way, with separate logos, colors, and styles. It diluted the brand and created a lot of extra production work for a small team.
I pulled it all together into one system. Event graphics were restructured to lead with the primary brand, and I redesigned a number of the individual event logos so they felt like part of the family rather than one-offs. Every piece now reinforced the same visual language, which made each campaign feel like part of a larger Como Friends story.
The payoff was practical as well as visual. In the first year under the unified system, the Give to the Max Day campaign raised more than ten thousand dollars above the previous year, and it took less staff time to produce.
Cohesion did not flatten creativity. It focused it. Each event kept its own theme and personality while clearly belonging to Como Friends.
