Medical Aid For Palestinians

Medical Aid for Palestinians

A rebrand for a UK based charity doing essential work delivering medical aid in Palestine, Lebanon and the West Bank

The challenge

Creating a brand for an organisation working in a war zone has particular challenges. Most times people experience the brand is in the form of urgent crisis communications, so needs to reflect the seriousness of this. But they needed more flex to be able to share more positive, or less urgent stories. MAP have been working in the region for over 40 years too, so the brand already has a lot of credibility and equity. Our task was to create a more flexible, modern brand without losing that.

Wordmark

MAP has been carrying out crucial work in Palestine and the wider region for a long time, building up a huge amount of brand recognition and trust in that time. When it came to updating the word mark we were very aware of this valuable heritage and not moving the brand too far from what the people in the region would recognise as MAP.

Using MAP's iconic ‘A’ as a starting point. We created bespoke letterforms in keeping with the brush stroke style of the original ‘A’, this allowed for a cohesive style across the whole of the mark. We also tweaked the original ‘A’ to improve the overall balance of the mark, as the previous letter forms widths were not consistent with each other, causing gaps to form between the characters. We also re-visited the typography lockup, re-arranging the layout, increasing the overall readability, and adding more emphasis on ‘Palestinians’.

Iconic, meaningful, clear

We created a full bespoke icon set for the brand, distilling the bold, direct brand style into icon form. The icons are used across all brand communications — presentations, video content, social channels — and need to communicate with clarity and purpose.

Colours with meaning

We developed a new colour palette for the brand based on what the charity does, and the where they work — the blue from surgical scrubs to represent the medical work, the green from olive trees that grow in the region, a sandstone from the local architecture. This is all combined with iconic and powerful MAP red, which we adjusted slightly to sit comfortably in the wider palette.

Windows into Palestinian life

We created a set of graphic shapes taking inspiration from traditional Palestinian textiles and architecture. These shapes are used flexibly across brand communications as framing devices for film and photography, or to incorporate typography.

The result

MAP is an organisation and a brand that means so much to the people of Palestine. The work they have been doing in the region has been life saving for decades, never more than in the last two years. A brand with so much emotion invested in it is always a challenge to update. From the uniforms of medical staff on the ground, to signage at aid stations, to fund raising activities and campaigns — the brand means a lot to a lot of people.

Our job was to update it so it works better in the modern world, without losing that vital connection with their audience within the region, and in the wider worold.