We wanted to give you glimpse of the many ways Justgiving is changing in the coming months, and we’re starting to use our new logo in our upcoming reports on the credit crunch, data integration, and the 2009 Flora London Marathon. If you’ve yet to see it, here it is:
As some of you know, we’ve been hard at work for the last 18 months creating an entirely new technology platform for Justgiving that will enable us to innovate and create new tools for charities and their supporters much faster and more frequently than we’ve ever been able to do.
As we talked to our users, we realised how tired our old look had become. ‘Safe’ and ‘trustworthy’ was how some of you described it. ‘Charmingly retro’ was also mentioned (enough said). Though we are sceptical of branding changes for the sake of cosmetics, we felt it was time for our site to reflect who we really are.
Our individual users told us that what they valued was not just a safe, secure way of collecting money, but also, and most importantly, a community – 7.4 million and counting – where they find like-minded people and therefore raise more money. Our charities also told us they wanted their brand and identity to shine on Justgiving – not the other way around. And we at Justgiving wanted a look that reflected the ethical nature of our business, and our exclusive focus on charity fundraising.
So we listened to all that and chose a new look, with the help of Michael Wallis (one of the team behind the hugely successful ‘We are Macmillan Cancer Support’ re-brand). We think it’s bold, simple and true. Because it is, essentially, a new fundraising ‘thermometer’, it celebrates our users’ and charities’ stories and achievements rather than our own.
Here’s a preview of what it will look like…
We like that it actually does a job and is therefore not just a pretty thing (though we do think it looks great). And it is designed to change to take on the colours chosen by our users and charities. In short, we thought it was time for Justgiving to fade a little bit into the background, and leave the limelight to you.
Our new look will go live in early June, along with a brand new site. Watch this space…
Anne-Marie Huby, Managing Director, Justgiving.
Michael Murdoch said
Hello,
It’s great that you have a new identity. It’s clean and bold which is always a good start. I am a designer and I love the thinking behind the logo allowing other companies to partner and and customise the logo. It’s very 2012 logo with the thinking and if I’m right, it’s by the same company Wolff Olins?
I have to say the static logo looks a bit odd. The logo mark doesn’t really say thermometer to me but I guess it come into it’s own when it’s animated and after all digital is what you’re all about! Perhaps the “just” and “giving” words need to be in different shades?
If you’d like any other design work done then please email me. I’ve just set up a new site for charity called http://www.lovebox.org.uk and we make use of your system too! Thanks for your help with the donation side of things and looking forward to seeing how your site develops!
Thanks,
Michael
http://www.studio-bodhi.com
Tony Marsh said
As a designer I regard your new thermometer and I feel it should present a three-dimensional aspect – perhaps like those coloured globes in old chemists shops with reflection highlights across its surface. You could have a subtly different colour for the glass material of the container and the fluid within. The appearance of a meniscus is very good – keep that.
Of course you must have noticed that when the attainment is 2% the globe (flat and mildly boring!) looks half full.
Clare said
Wow, what have you done?! Comments from my fundraising colleagues so far as to what the logo/thermometer look like/represent include:
- spiky handbag
- dangerous jellyfish
- eco washball
- acid attack on the eyes
- a kiwi fruit
Our supporters use JustGiving precisely because it is recognisable, dependable, a safe place to donate etc. Stick with the old logo, it’s a friendly font that does the job. Has nothing been learned from the Olympic logo fiasco?
Liz Kershaw said
(NW Support Group of the North London Hospice) Sorry guys, I think it looks like swine flu virus under a microscope. Too harsh and uncuddly. The previous logo and indicator had an attractive rustic charm and character. This is too cold and corporate. I’m all for updating the technology etc but some image revamps are a step too far.
Dan Woods said
I’m a fan of simplicity, so the design is good, but the colours seem a little cold. Given that the concept is based on a thermometer, I would have expected the colours to represent the warmer end of the temperature spectrum!
Also, will the design resources such as the JustGiving buttons supplied in the charity admin portal be redesigned and available in time for the full rebrand?
unitedthroughsport.org : Play. Tackle. Unite.
Helena Akerlund said
I tend to agree with Liz (#comment-1052) – it looks very harsh and unfriendly with all those spiky edges. The new typeface is also edgy and less friendly looking than the old.
Peter Rowbottom said
Sorry – don’t like it either – original logo is far clearer – all lower case and has been established as a recognisable brand.
If it aint broke don’t try to fix it.
Chuck said
Afraid to say I agree with those above – when I first saw the new logo, I thought it was badly compressed and pixelated around the edges. And the new semi-serif font seems to be a step backwards than making it cleaner and more modern.
Also agree that the colours are less friendly – JustGiving is becoming a more recognisable brand, and the old colours were great, friendly and funky.
But honestly, my biggest issue is with the dark blue small logo – it really doesn’t look good in my browser, it looks like it’s rough and raggedy round the edges, not like it’s got tiny uniform mini-spikes at all.
Laurence Robb said
Um, now Jon I see what the others mean. It is blue, warmth is better so red would be nice. I like the previous logo with 2 separate colours showing 2 words. The problem is more with showing the overflow it would be fun to see and encourage the devil in the donor. A bit like an overloaded screen diagram of a washing machine. So far the thermometer and the widget cannot cope with showing a marvelous success like #coast2coastrun. The ribbon is over optimistic placing the ratio in the next centile.
What would be interesting would be some new buttons like “sponsor us now” as #coast2coastrun was a joint effort of two friends. So there is some improvement due but I agree also with Helena and Liz oh and Dan too.
Kelly Fate said
“Our charities also told us they wanted their brand and identity to shine on Justgiving – not the other way around. And we at Justgiving wanted a look that reflected the ethical nature of our business, and our exclusive focus on charity fundraising.”
If that is so, why did you end up with a poorly executed version of the Thames Water corporate identity??? John Lewis are “charmingly retro” and thriving – enough said…
Elizabeth@justgiving said
Hello – it’s Elizabeth from Justgiving here. I’ve been working on the design of the Justgiving brand since way back in 2001 – and I’ve been taking a lead on our current revamp. I want to thank you for the feedback on the new brand – we know it is taking Justgiving in a different direction, and I’d like to contextualize it a bit more for you.
The new brand is the result of over a year’s worth of research on our side – we spent a lot of time speaking to our users, from page builders and sponsors, to the charities which use the site. A few themes kept emerging in all of our discussions – the first was that the current Justgiving brand (the blue and purple) was looking a bit tired and generic. Which was fine –we could soldier on with that. But, more importantly, our users told us that our current site didn’t allow them to express their personality as much as they’d like – and that we weren’t emphasising the things that they thought were really important, like the fundraising thermometer.
What Anne-Marie posted above was just a taster of the direction that you’ll be seeing this summer – the logo and thermometer are built to display in different colours according to the user’s choice – the blue is just a ‘default’ for our homepage and other information areas. We want our logo to be a bit of a chameleon – it changes colour in accordance to the company it keeps! I think when you see the new website and the updated fundraising pages you’ll agree with me that we are taking Justgiving in a fresh new direction – not ‘reinventing the wheel’, but instead capitalising on what really matters to people, and aligning with the social web.
Over the next weeks we’ll be previewing more of the brand on the blog here, so watch this space. And if you’d like to talk to me about it just drop me a line at elizabeth@justgiving.com . Feedback is always welcome.
Also – we’ve already received emails from our charity members who want to update their websites with the new logo – rest assured that we will be sending out a bumper pack of updated logo goodness as soon as we launch the new site this summer.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Elizabeth