The idea of building a visual identity
How perfect is that for us? Despite hardship, we’re still here! Our experiences provide strength and hope. A field of sunflowers, our Sisterhood helps us process the trauma of losing our mom and contributes to the overall wellbeing of our communities.
Our logo design was my first foray into identity building with the full-fledged AI tools we now have access to. I had originally started with a single simple line-drawing of a rose, in honor of Phots’ mom. Using Photoshop Beta’s “generative fill” tool, I played around with different variations of a sunflower and a rose together, in the minimal, serious, and yet beautiful style of continuous line drawings, which are also throughout the site. It was important to Phots that we have color, and life, in our visual identity. There were some gorgeous watercolor “splashes” that we tried as backgrounds, and ultimately I used AI to generate variations of our favorite to arrive at the one you see. I thought it was really cool that I edited the logo with Phots and Eli in real time, screensharing my illustrator file over zoom. We tweaked things here and there and came to something that we all loved!
I love that even though we’re a grassroots community organization, we don’t have to have yet another logo of stick figures holding hands. We’ve got something sophisticated and unique – something that hopefully evokes both resilience and hope.
The meetups weren’t elaborate, perhaps something creative here, meeting for tea there, but they were a lifeline for a 20-something going through life without her mom. I felt nurtured and loved for who I was. I felt I had a space to process and mourn not just the loss of my mom but the loss of everything that would have come with having her in my life as an adult, too.
I moved back stateside and eventually to France, and looked for other groups of motherless daughters, but I discovered that what I found in London was truly special. When Phots and I started talking about a website for the Sisterhood, one thing was clear – we want this to be a place where women can come and feel “home.”
On some of the design decisions
What sort of visual identity could do justice to such a vulnerability? We landed, I think, on something that is both gentle and striking, vulnerable and that also conveys our depth. So many grassroots organizations, without a design budget, must make-do with out-of-the-box websites, logos, and typefaces. Well that just wasn’t going to be good enough. We’re women who have been to hell and back trying to make a life for ourselves, to navigate this world in the face of one of the biggest losses a human can face in this life – that of their mother – and the accompanying trauma. We’re made of steel, but with tender hearts that know all-too-well the pain that comes with being alive in this world. For me, out-of-the-box wasn’t going to cut it.
On the typeface: Histeagin Serif
The font we’re using in our logo and for headings across the site was designed by Yahya Qara, a young type designer based in Morocco. What do I love about it? The better question is what DON’T I love about it.
–The most striking feature of the typeface is probably its ligatures – this community is about not going through the motherloss experience alone, and the sense of connection evoked with the connected letters, the smooshed together “O’s” – it was an immediate match.
– The weight is another interesting feature of Histeagin – there are moments, such as at the curves of the m, and generally at the upper edges of each letter, where it is much thinner. The letters get heavier towards the bottom, and I love the strength that conveys. The contrast between the thin delicate lines and the heavier sections carries the dichotomy of vulnerability and resilience that women like us experience.
– For the non-type-design aficionados reading this, the word “serif” refers to the small horizontal lines or triangular thickenings present on the edges of the letters. They typically bring a sense of seriousness and professionalism to a text. Some argue that it is easier for the eye to read, regardless, Phots especially has a lot of research to share on this site. The hope is that using Histeagin serif with its heavier weight and its serifs, provides the gravitas, while our
Body font, Lato,
can convey the information and stories we’re sharing here without getting in the way. Designed by Łukasz Dziedzic, it’s a Google font with open source values that we can get behind. It’s also pretty neat that its name, Lato, was an ancient city of Crete, a special nod to Phots’ and her mom’s Greek origins. Funnily enough, the word “lato” means “summer” in Polish, and Warsaw native Dziedzic wrote that the typeface was intended to be: “serious but friendly, with the feeling of summer.”
And speaking of summer, another big part of the sisterhood's visual identity is the sunflower!
Our logo design was my first foray into identity building with the full-fledged AI tools we now have access to. I had originally started with a single simple line-drawing of a rose, in honor of Phots’ mom. Using Photoshop Beta’s “generative fill” tool, I played around with different variations of a sunflower and a rose together, in the minimal, serious, and yet beautiful style of continuous line drawings, which are also throughout the site. It was important to Phots that we have color, and life, in our visual identity. There were some gorgeous watercolor “splashes” that we tried as backgrounds, and ultimately I used AI to generate variations of our favorite to arrive at the one you see. I thought it was really cool that I edited the logo with Phots and Eli in real time, screensharing my illustrator file over zoom. We tweaked things here and there and came to something that we all loved!
I love that even though we’re a grassroots community organization, we don’t have to have yet another logo of stick figures holding hands. We’ve got something sophisticated and unique – something that hopefully evokes both resilience and hope.
