In Kelly’s Words – We Have a New Look!

A logo is just a specific combination of shapes, colors and fonts. But how those components come together tells the story of a history, present, and future. I don’t know these things because I’m some branding expert, I know them because we just took a deep dive into the past, present, and future of the KBF brand. Our conclusions:

We already had the right words, story, and impact.

• • We are fun, hopeful, energetic, supportive and dynamic
  • We are inspiring and aspirational and yet compassionate and grounded
  • We help people with spinal cord injuries (SCI) on their journey from injury to independence

We needed the right visuals to fully tell that story and rally people around it.

To me, the new KBF logo strikes a perfect balance. The circle is dynamic: representing someone’s post-spinal cord injury journey from injury to independence. The circle represents motion of a wheel from a wheelchair or the strength gained from being in motion. The colors are bright: the yellow sun showing hope and the welcoming blue evoking support. The lowercase letters are fluid representing our youthful and approachable demeanor. The shape of the “b” is also a nod to a wheelchair. This logo allows us to use either the acronym KBF or the full Kelly Brush Foundation.

I hope with this new logo and new look that we will be even more recognizable in the community and it will be clear to everyone who we are and what we do, because nothing about that has changed. We are still the same people with the same mission to help people with SCI live active and engaged lives. We still believe that life is better active because being active has the power to change us emotionally, psychologically, and physically. We want to allow everyone to be active on their own terms and in their own way.

I cannot write this blog without a big nod and debt of gratitude to our past. The original KBF logo, what we refer to as the “k-heart”, was created in 2006 when I first founded the KBF. We had hired a firm to develop a logo and nothing that they came up with was quite right. So, as most decisions were made back then, we were sitting around the dinner table at my parents’ house brainstorming what to do. Someone had the idea to ask my aunt, Margot Datz, an artist on Martha’s Vineyard, if she would go through her creative process. What she sent back was just perfect. It captured not only the KB for the foundation name but also the outpouring of love that was central to the founding of the KBF and what we continue to be about. For 15 years this logo has been central to who we are.

Six years ago we updated the k-heart logo, tweaking the font, colors, and arrangement just slightly. That was a great modernizing step, and now is the right time to retire the k-heart logo and create something totally different. It will continue to live on in 15 years of memories, swag, and meaning!

I have recognized in myself that I have a hard time with change. Whether small changes or big I always feel anxious, worried, or sad and feel like staying with the status quo is safer, easier and better. Almost always, when I push through, I’m happy with the change and glad it was made. So when we started talking about updating the KBF logo and visuals I naturally felt anxious about it. But, in true fashion, now I could not be more excited!