Institute on Aging
Brand & Campaign Development.
The Institute on Aging has spent decades doing some of the most quietly meaningful work in the Bay Area, supporting older adults and the families who love them with care, companionship, and a steady hand at every stage of getting older. The challenge wasn’t establishing what they do. It was helping a new generation of donors, partners, families, and members recognize themselves in it. We rebuilt the brand from the mark outward, developed a campaign device that flexes across everything the Institute touches, and gave the organization a voice as warm and capable as the work itself.
The campaign idea is built right into the headline. The institute on _____. The blank is the whole point. It bends to fit the moment, the audience, and the story being told. The institute on brighter days. The institute on conversations. The institute on seasons of care. The institute on everyday independence. One simple structural device became a flexible language carried across annual reports, the member magazine, direct mail, the shuttle fleet, gala invitations, transit, OOH, and the website. It gives every team across IOA a way to write headlines that all feel like family, without anyone having to file a brand request to do it. The visual system holds it all together: warm cream backgrounds, real candid photography of real older adults, an unmistakable orange that signals optimism without ever tipping into cheerful, and the square mark that quietly frames every page.
The Institute’s work shows up in a lot of different forms (companionship visits, caregiver support, dementia care, transportation, fundraising galas, Pride celebrations) and the system was built to give each of those programs its own clear identity without ever breaking the parent brand. CompanIOA carries the gatherings: A Night of Light, A Gathering of Guidance, the annual Evening of Impact. AgeOn® sits alongside the Institute as the umbrella expression of the work. The stewardship materials lean into the small, intimate moments that make generosity feel personal: a tiny envelope (literally the world’s smallest mailable size), a handwritten thank-you, a single line about the power of small. Big change often starts with something small. Giving in this world isn’t transactional. It’s a relationship, and every piece of stewardship the Institute sends out reads like one.
The campaign meets people exactly where they live. Bus shelters near the Palace of Fine Arts. BART interior cards on the morning commute. The shuttles that deliver members to medical appointments, day programs, and community gatherings. Billboards anchored on the data that makes the case (“80% of those with dementia live at home”). A redesigned website that finally feels like the work it represents. Calm, generous, organized around the person looking for help rather than the org chart of the institution offering it. The institute on access. The institute on independence. The institute on living well. The institute on dignity. The headline frame holds it all together, and the photography does the rest. Every surface is designed to do the same thing: make the next person who needs the Institute feel like they already belong here.
