Facebook: Latinos in Tech Rebranding
Latinos in Tech is an industry-wide initiative that invites Latinos in the tech industry to connect and engage. The organization, which is housed at Facebook, formed a few years back, gaining steam incrementally through events in the Bay Area and, eventually, at other locations where Facebook has a presence.
As the organization matured and grew, the team at Facebook increasingly felt that its visual identity — which was created internally — no longer felt appropriate to the scope and ambitions of the organization. In particular, the team wanted a logo that felt representative of the group. That meant crafting an identity that would be equal parts latino and tech, without falling prey to stereotypes or visual clichés about latinidad or technology. The key notes to hit: bold, vibrant, human, approachable, authentic, and high-tech.
In short, as the brief said: “we’re now ready to start with a fresh approach that balances the aforementioned attributes with the cutting-edge technologies our community builds.”
The deliverables included a logo design and the development of the brand identity, applied to posters, t-shirts, pins, and other swag–just in time for an upcoming event five weeks out.
Process
The prompt sounds simple. But simplicity can contain tremendous complexity. And that, precisely, was the task at hand with this logo: to distill tremendous complexity into a simple form. To represent the immense history and scope of Latinidad, which includes hundreds of languages and dialects, ancient civilizations, world metropolises and cities and towns up and down the Americas and beyond.
We explored popular vernacular, modern and contemporary art, landscape synthesis, op-art and midcentury Latin American design. Finally we landed on a direction inspired by:
(a) The geometry of circuits abstracted into straight lines and sharp angles
(b) Geometric patterns and motifs recurring throughout Latin America
(c) Contemporary linework and typography
(b) Geometric patterns and motifs recurring throughout Latin America
(c) Contemporary linework and typography
We added hand-lettering extrusions and a vibrant color palette to create a deeply relevant, contemporary, versatile mark that can expand almost endlessly.
Results
The Facebook team selected a direction and we set out to explore different color palettes for the logo. We developed three different color palettes, and applied over 20 permutations of color to the logos, plus a black-and-white application.
Because of the logo’s intricate line-work, size-versioning was a big part of the delivery process. We created a set that was adapted specifically for smaller uses with a thicker outline that can reduce comfortably (see the enamel pin?). Different color uses were explored for different sizes and a guideline document delivered specifying which logos and colors can be used in certain sizes.
Finally we began applying the brand to different surfaces. We designed graphics for posters, t-shirts, water bottles, backpacks, buttons, and, yes, the enamel pin. The brand was unveiled in June 2018 at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park.