DANCE UPRISING
Dance Uprising is a politically charged progressive dance company focused in the LGBTQIA+ space, providing outlet and safe haven for the queer community. Their mission is to create protest and change through art and movement, to progress the American society at large. The goal was to design a full logo and brand mark to effectively identify the company, as well as communicate the idea of progress, pride, and power.
SERVICES
• Art Direction
• Brand Identity
For Dance Uprising to match with their best-in-class competitors, we needed to set clear intentions and ask nuanced questions
What are we trying to communicate in this identity? What is the rest of the industry doing? What are the values and mission of Dance Uprising? How do we communicate this effectively and simply while retaining a sense of personality, and reflecting the people within the company?
We landed on the following keywords to guide us:
Progress • Power • Movement • Love • Pride • Skill • Growth
Logo
Through trial and error we landed on a flag motif, being both a reference to pride flags and flags often waved at protests across the world. The logo sits on an upward wave, bringing to the forefront the concept of “uprising”, along with a simple upward arrow within the “D”, which allows the letter to be taken out of the full mark and used as a simple brand mark in tight spaces. The wave also brings a sense of movement, harkening to the company’s entire M.O. – dance.
The flag motif allows Dance Uprising to represent any party of the LGBTQIA+ movement by superimposing the colors and patterns of any sexuality or gender identity into it. These were provided within the brand kit to the client for any time the case calls for it.
Visual Identity
To align with progressive political parties, kindness, safety, and energy, an electric blue color was chosen as the primary brand color. While this eye catching blue is the main face of Dance Uprising, it wasn’t stressed as being a highly important, immovable color. This was to make room for the flag treatments, or any other color treatments that may serve the brand better under different contexts.
The rest of the identity was left to be fairly open. Flexibility and modularity was a high priority for Dance Uprising, so the fewer guidelines, the better. The most important aspects of the brand are the logo form and the font choice, as well as using the Electric Blue as the dominant color in any given application.
