Issued by: Rex Creative


One of the most important things that you can give to these children is hope, and that's exactly what the team at Rex set out to do when they created a new name and brand identity for the Wits Pediatric HIV Clinics - currently the biggest and one of the best children's HIV treatment and care centre groups worldwide.

At the time, the clinics were operating under three names simultaneously - the Wits Pediatric HIV Clinics, ECHO and Asiphilisane. Rex was tasked with creating a cohesive brand that would not only create strong awareness in the communities in which the clinics worked, but also one that could compete for funding against the likes of Unicef, 46664 and RED.

The first order of business was to choose one name to represent the organisation across all its activities.

“ECHO, which stands for Enhancing Children's HIV Outcomes, was the logical choice. Not only is it a strong and simple name, but more importantly it represents hope and promise, the kind of tangible quality upon which a new brand could be built,” says Rex co-founder Rudo Botha.

Designing the brand imagery was not so simple.

“In an ideal world, this organisation would not exist. It's tough to design a name and brand imagery for an organisation which is striving to make itself non-existent! But, in speaking with the people who run the clinics, and with the children for whom they care, we realised that our goal was to imbue the organisation clinic with love and care and hope, until such time as it is no longer needed.

“The challenge on the design side was that we wanted to retain the link with HIV through the symbolic red ribbon, but that we also firmly believed that this particular symbol was frightening and intimidating for children,” says Rex co-founder Olivier Schildt.

The solution was to take the original ribbon and imbue it with hope and love, and so inject life and optimism into what has become a very negative symbol.

The result is a child-like rendition of the HIV red ribbon, transformed via the addition of one more loop into a heart, and then repeated again and again, in a visual representation of the word ‘echo'.

“It's a beautiful, brilliant representation of the work that we do. And, importantly, it speaks very strongly of the love and care and hope that we strive to give to our children every day,” says ECHO's Celiwe Dhlamini.

“This was one of the most uplifting projects in which we've been involved,” concludes Botha. “When last did we get to design a logo that has the opportunity to fundamentally change lives?”

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: Rex is a company of designers intent on delivering business solutions in the form of intelligent and inspirational design.- more....

[31 Mar 2008 13:47]

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