📗 The team at Design Bloc worked closely with the residents of the historic Hunter Hills community to design a neighborhood brand that accurately represents their rich history. Design Bloc staff conducted extensive ethnographic research to understand the social, environmental, and material considerations for a representative brand.

Ethnographic Research

Our journey begins with empathy. As one of the first planned black neighborhoods in Atlanta, Hunter Hills carries a long and significant history that must be preserved in its representation.

The Hunter Hills brand should reinforce the historic values of a unified community.

literature reviews helped us understand the context

neighborhood walks helped us understand the landscape

resident interviews helped us understand the experience

Designing With the Community

We met with the Hunter Hills Neighborhood Association after each of several rounds of logo ideation, gathering feedback to lead us to the best final logo.

Staff generated dozens of sketch thumbnails

I iterated on another staff’s sketch to arrive at the final logo on the right

Collaborative InDesign

I prepared a template file for our staff to create assigned pages of the final book.

Page plan with proportional grid fields and measured type

Predefined text styles designed to fit in the grid and integrate with InDesign’s TOC feature

Standard page layouts for collaborative consistency

The Handoff

Unfortunately I was in COVID isolation during our brand book handoff 😢

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my team mates: Mars Lovelace, Hannan Abdi, Cole Campbell, Jordan Lym, Hunter Schaufel, Margaret Lu
Thanks to our leads: Shawn Harris, Michael Flanigan, Wayne Li
Thanks to the residents: Char Johnson, Lisa Reyes, Alfred Tucker, everyone from the Hunter Hills Neighborhood Association, and all the neighbors that contributed via interviews and workshops