CHSC

Bedtime stories were doing a lot of work.

A bedtime story told for the thousandth time. A round of I spy. Small, repeated moments through which children and families build a world together. In our work with Children’s Hearing & Speech Centre of BC, those familiar rituals became a way into the brand story.

The Centre supports children with hearing loss and families choosing listening and spoken language education. Its team brought deep knowledge and care to that work. We wanted more of its warmth and family-centred approach to come through in the way the organization spoke and looked. Dawn McKenna described our work together as “some gentle rebranding.” There was already a great deal worth keeping.

We followed the stories behind the program names.

We brought together perspectives from teachers, specialists, the organization’s leadership, and a parent. People spoke about learning through songs and repetition, the reassurance of finding other families, and the pride of seeing a child take a next step. The clinical and educational work sat within those very human experiences.

“They really listened to our thoughts about the organization and the stories we shared about our programs,” Dawn said. Those stories gave us something specific to work with. We could explain the Centre’s approach through the moments it helped families participate in, using language that felt familiar before it became technical.

We developed a direction around connection, expressed in the line “Connect from the very beginning.” It gave the communications a shared thread, from introducing the organization to inviting a family to learn more.

Everyday family moments sit alongside practical announcements within the same visual language.

The butterfly had more room to move.

We worked with the Centre’s familiar butterfly identity and developed its wing forms into a broader visual system. Enlarged shapes could frame a photograph, carry a message, or bring movement into a composition. The butterfly remained recognizable, with more ways for its character to travel through the brand.

The familiar butterfly sits within a wider graphic world, with enlarged wing forms giving the identity movement and scale.

A family of blues gave us a clear foundation, while rounded forms and expressive scale brought energy to the applications. The system could hold a quieter introduction or a more playful invitation, with enough consistency for each piece to belong to the same organization.

The words and images could tell the story together.

We paired the visual language with messages drawn from everyday family life. Bedtime stories and I spy gave the communications an immediate setting: a book, a shared game, a moment someone could picture. That specificity helped us bring the Centre’s work into view through experiences people knew.

I spy becomes an invitation into the Centre’s story, with the wing forms making room for a photograph and a clear message.

We carried the direction into social materials, poster concepts, and other applications. The familiar mark, the larger graphic forms, and the family language could work together across very different sizes and contexts.

The bedtime-story message brings the family-centred direction into a public-facing campaign presentation.

“The subtle changes they’ve made to our logo, colours and the words that describe us are brilliant and we can’t wait to put them to use!” Dawn told us. We love the way that response holds the different parts of the work together. The drawing, the palette, and the words were all helping the same story become clearer.

The connection line and enlarged wing forms carry the identity onto an everyday object.

We are fond of the warmth in this work. It came from paying attention to what the team was already telling us about families, learning, and the everyday moments that mattered. The butterfly gave us a recognizable starting point. Those stories gave it a larger world to live in.