100th Anniversary Identity for national water utilities company
To celebrate the landmark 100th anniversary occasion of the water service company Cal Water, it took a village. Everyone from video, motion, copywriters, and more had a hand in the numerous collateral pieces to bring this project to life including hundreds of video components, a microsite, merchandise, and much more–all stemming from the identity carefully created by myself, Associate Creative Director Ryan Cassidy, and Designer Conner McCormick.
While the initial mood and campaign logo were designed by my colleague, I was responsible for creating the identity guidelines as well as various brand application examples and served as design oversight and quality assurance for other pieces of the campaign.
The challenge was to find a creative way to showcase the vast archive that Cal Water had in their possession. Employee photography, vintage reports and documents, blueprint mechanicals of water tanks, and even video footage of commercials and more spanning all the way back to the 1920s gave us a unique opportunity to highlight such an interesting and important history of the company as well as celebrating its employees.
Taking a scrapbook-approach, we utilized and archival and layered approach that was both editorial as well as nostalgic. Details such as texture of blueprint plans and a hand-written font were brought in to further support the concept. We also wanting to keep the parent brand’s identity so the brand’s colors and logos were still represented.
With so many aspects to the project, it was important that the design system remain flexible and responsive, especially as the work would be customized per their five service states of California, New Mexico, Hawaii, Texas, and Washington.
A big part of the 100th anniversary campaign was the design of a microsite which would host many pieces of our collateral such as employee videos, archival photography, and feature an interactive timeline. Working with Figma designer Armando Rodriguez and UX expert DJ Johnson, my role was to concept the original look/feel of the historic timelines that would span across all ten decades.
