Home For Life Rescue Rebrand

About the Organization

HFLCS is a non-profit animal rescue in Springfield, Missouri. They have been around for over 30 years and go by their HFLCS abbreviation, which is short for Home for Life Cat Sanctuary.

Originally, the nonprofit was only a cat sanctuary, but when the rescue came about they turned to the abbreviation as the public name. This title is hard for clients to remember and only encompasses one aspect of the organization. Therefore I decided to shorten it to Home for Life and rebrand based on that name.

Primary Logo

Secondary Logo

Why The Update?

The current logo is complicated and lacks a unification of illustration styles.

Persona Development

Since pets live a long time, a rescue has to work much harder to stay at the forefront of a consumer’s mind. This is why it’s so important to pay attention to the needs of your customers and cater to their preferences. Positive experiences go a long way in ensuring future support, whether it is financial, donated time or goods, or through word-of-mouth referrals.

To help with this, I created user persona guides for the two most common groups that Home For Life serves. The two main groups I focused on were college students/young families, as well as the elderly. While these groups are very different, they still share similar needs. Both groups desire an easy-to-use website with smooth and direct paths to information.

The two groups differ mainly in the ways that they approach technology and relationships. The younger generation embraces the use of technology and social media, while the older generation desires more direct human interaction.

To make their mark on the younger generation, I suggested keeping up with social media platforms, mainly Instagram and TikTok, to keep the rescue fresh in their minds. In addition, I recommended adding care and training resources to the website to bring users back to the rescue even after they’ve taken their pet home.

To inspire loyalty from the older users, the rescue will need to take a much more hands-on approach. This user values a meaningful in-person interaction over a strong website or social media presence. This will require the volunteers to work closely with this user on adoption days, working to answer questions and find a good match based on the information offered about each pet.

The Mobile Site

While giving the rescue a much-needed brand update, I saw the need for a mobile presence as well. Much of the Home for Life audience consists of college students or new families who would benefit from the time-saving convenience of a mobile site. However, I also wanted the site to be easy for the elderly in the community to use.

When creating the mobile site, I wanted it to be user-friendly. To create the most logical menu for users, I conducted a card sorting test on the Optimal Workshop website.

Click Here To View The Prototype

Before

What I would do differently now

Reflecting on this project, there are a few things I would do differently today. While it’s still possible to make all these changes, leaving my project as-is better illustrates the growth I’ve achieved with time, hindsight, and new influences.

The biggest change I would make to this project is the homepage. I still like the majority of the design, however, I now think the headlines could be bolder and I would center them.

Additionally, the original homepage relies too much on people navigating to the menu to find certain features, however, things like donation links and adoptable pets should be more easily accessible. When I first completed the project, I thought success stories would draw people in to adopt, but now I realize that the adoptable pets will sell themselves, so to speak, and would make them the feature of the homepage. I still think highlighting accomplishments like successful adoptions is important, but not above the adoptable pets.

After

Merch

Stationary and business Necessities

As a registered non-profit that deals with numerous donations and government organizations, I wanted to give them their own stationery for thank you notes and other official business. I also included an updated business card that matches the new brand.

Annual Newsletter

One of my goals for the rescue rebrand was to create a professional but approachable brand. One of the ways I planned to achieve this was to create an annual newsletter informing donors and adopters of the progress made throughout the year.

This letter covers the volunteer hours contributed, the money donated, and the number of pets who found their forever home. It will also include a link to some of the most heartwarming adoption stories and updates from happy adopters.

The website includes a space where those who have adopted through the rescue can share the story and updates on their pets. I think it’s important to utilize this feature in a newsletter to evoke a positive emotional response from the readers.

Brand Standards

As an organization close to my heart, I want to see HFLCS thrive. Branding is essential when it comes to recognition and inspiring loyalty and action. To keep everything consistent, I created a style guide that lays out the potential usage of fonts, logos, and other aspects of the brand.

If someone else were to take over, I wanted clear rules to ensure that the design is constant across all platforms and all products affiliated with the rescue. I even included a number of variations and when they might be needed, in order to demonstrate how to “break the rules” in an acceptable manner.

The Research

Home for Life’s audience consists of many Springfield locals. College students, young families, and seniors are some of the most popular customers. Typically these animal lovers will fall into the lower and middle-class socioeconomic range. These qualities meant the logo needed to be simple, heartwarming, and a bit quirky, to match the organization’s personality.