High Alert Brand and Website
Project background
Drug Information and Alerts Aotearoa New Zealand (DIANZ) provides information to the public to help reduce drug harm in our communities. DIANZ needed a new brand and a new website for New Zealanders to receive any information, incidents, or emerging trends in the effects and use of substances. There was a clear goal from the beginning of the project: to reduce substance harm in New Zealand.
Brand and logo design
With a unique target audience of people who use drugs, I was tasked with creating a brand that balanced the authority it required with still being approachable, to encourage people to engage with the website. We engaged in user testing throughout every stage of the process to see how the brand would resonate with our target audience.
Through the extensive research and user testing process, I was able to come up with a brand that resonated with both the users of the site and the key stakeholders for the project—High Alert. Taking the playfulness of the word “High” and balancing it with the authority of “Alert”, the brand had a bold, playful, and structured voice that DIANZ were looking for. Once the new brand for the project was decided, it informed the creative process for the brand and web design moving forward. All the fonts, colours, and logo maintained a good balance of playfulness and authority that the brand needed.
Original logo concepts for user testing the logo design and name of the new brand
Visual identity and guidelines
Once the logo was established, the visual identity for the website followed. The colour palette was made up of rich, high-intensity colours to create vibrance and engage the target audience. A visual identity guideline outlined the new brand, colours, typography, iconography and design system that had been put in place for the new organisation.
User interface design
Once the visual identity was in place, I was able to apply the brand assets to a completely new UI for the High Alert website. Bespoke page templates were created to allow the High Alert team to publish news and alerts to the public.
The bold design allowed content authors to create engaging page designs with content blocks for maximum flexibility. Each content block was highly flexible, with options for different background colours and layouts.
