NC-PAL Identity

work

Dec 20

We first partnered with Duke Health’s Integrated Pediatric Mental Health team to work on the Autism and Beyond HealthKit app.* NC-PAL, part of Duke Health’s IPMH department, initially reached out for their branding and print materials.

Developing the Brand

Like IPMH, NC-PAL is an acronym for a fairly long organization name: North Carolina Psychiatry Access Line. NC-PAL needed an identity kit that would help them wrangle the full name, the acronym, and the names of their departments and programs. Lucky for us, variable identities are totally in our wheelhouse.

Logo

The primary logo lockup features the acronym block + full name in a horizontal layout. The final kit includes vertically stacked layouts, and acronym-only options.

Our brand process always starts out with designing in line art. If a logo can hold up in black and white, it’s nearly a given that color will be easy to apply.

The acronym “NC-PAL” is the foundational building block of the identity, which naturally led us to a block shaped encapsulation for the lettering. We paired it with a chunky sans-serif typeface featuring unique, cut-angle corners, and bled the ‘p’ off the edge of the block for balance.

Our next task was developing the lockup: the acronym block + the full name or a program name. A lighter-weight, contrasting serif typeface struck the right chord. And both type choices have a modern, friendly appeal—a top-level goal for the branding.

Duke Brand Influences

Our Duke clients often need to include parity between their brand and Duke’s, and we achieve that visual relationship through color and typography choices.

Color

We began by reviewing the extended palettes of Duke University and Duke School of Medicine. But we didn’t stop with simply making selects—we adjusted the color codes for increased contrast, which is an accessibility factor when setting type on screen or in print. Each NC-PAL program is also color coded: bright blue for Child Psychiatry, and vibrant purple for Perinatal Psychiatry. The secondary palette is shared between the programs, both deploying a dark gray for typesetting and additional colors as accents. (Think: links, buttons, background colors, etc.)

Typography

Duke typography choices vary by department, but we looked to the School of Medicine for inspiration since this brand is tied to medicine and health. Duke SoM uses Open Sans and Roboto Slab for its collateral font choices—and both are undeniably useful fonts, especially for screen. But by now, you’ve probably noticed that we’re fans of thoughtful remixes. We chose Proxima Nova and Tisa to hit a similar visual style with added sophistication.

The end result are colors and type that are recognizably Duke-influenced and custom-tailored to fit NC-PAL. The brand kit comes together harmoniously in design deployment, from hand cards to folders and more.