By: Victoria Ortiz
Left brain, right brain. Scientific or artistic. In this world of specialization it’s easy to separate the two spheres. But at Adventure Scientists we bring together different communities and ideas. We connect adventurers and scientists, and we believe that data tell stories that create tangible outcomes. But how does one show that in a logo?
In 2016, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC) officially became Adventure Scientists.
To accompany our new name we needed a new look and feel that embodied our tagline “Explore. Collect. Protect.” We turned to a designer who could visually blend these diverse elements of our organization. Stacy Townsend of Bozeman-based Townsend Collective walked us through the creative process of an organizational rebrand, and it sounded a lot like the scientific process.
“Design is solving a problem,” says Townsend. “In this case we needed a clean and simple image that made you simultaneously think of both science and adventure.”
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She tested over 30 concepts blending two lists of items that visually represented the two themes. She experimented with a backpack, ice ax, and hiking boot for the adventurers, and a double helix, leaf, and molecule for the scientists. “Turns out, you can’t combine a hiking boot and a molecule, it just doesn’t work.”
Then she combined the double mountain peak and the molecule. “It clicked,” says Townsend. The mark illustrates an electron, held strong to its path by the magnetic nature of its nucleus – the mountains.
“You can talk about design as this big mystery, but the reality is that I try a lot of things, talk to my clients about what makes sense with the brand, and make it sing.”
Based in Bozeman, Montana, Townsend Collective is a small design studio offering custom branding and photography services since 2014.