LIFE

Logo + Branding
Washington State Department of Health

The Lactation and Infant Feeding-Friendly Environments (LIFE) program, formerly known as the Breastfeeding Friendly Washington program, recognizes and designates health care organizations that work to support, protect, and promote lactation and follow maternity care practices that align with the World Health Organization’s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and Baby-Friendly USA. The program made the name change and rebrand to align with Baby-Friendly USA, WHO and Unicef program updates, as well as community input from families and coalitions, diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that address systemic barriers, and the latest research of evidence-based maternity care practices

Concepting & Brand Development

With LIFE, the program wanted to focus on imagery that is symbolic of Washington state - evergreen trees and Mt. Rainier, as well as babies being held or nurtured. They wanted to make sure that the logo didn’t resemble breastfeeding specifically, so that it represented the program’s shift toward being more inclusive of different types of infant feeding. They also sent me two specific color palettes to work from, which made the process a little more focused right from the beginning.

The first five concepts centered around the iconography of trees and foliage and how those support and give life to so many things. I looked at different illustration styles to see what connected best. In concept four, I made an L shape out of a leaf for a simple, yet unique monogram icon for the program. And concept five featured a baby’s handprint with an evergreen tree in the palm.

The lower row featured concepts that were a bit outside of what the program was looking for initially, but I wanted to see if any of these more simplified, baby-focused concepts were more on the mark. It’s in this set of concepts that you can see the early iteration of what would eventually become the final logo.

After the initial internal review, we were able to narrow down to six concepts for a larger key stakeholder review to gain some feedback from external sources. From that feedback, we cut out one of the four remaining tree concepts as well as the “L” heart monogram. It was at this stage that the eventual logo became the frontrunner.

Once we had it narrowed down to four key concepts, the clients from the program asked to see some alternates of each logo. This is where shapes were introduced for the final logo, as well as the lowercase logotype and milk droplet for the i in the name.

After reviewing the four finalist concepts, the clients from the program decided to hone in on the concept of the baby being cradled. We looked at a few different shapes for the icon of the logo with a bit more of an organic feeling.