The International Women’s Writing Guild
Rising to Their Promise
The IWWG has been enriching women writer’s lives since 1976. They’ve delivered empowering programs through their summer conference, a few regional conferences, and a membership publication, but their new board members knew The Guild had far more potential.
WIth a reorganization of their leadership, they took stock of their vision and mission. They knew their website was outdated. They had performed an internal brand audit, but they knew they had no distinct visual brand. They also lacked a coherent narrative of what distinguishes The Guild from numerous other writing organizations that target women.
The Guild’s Board came to us with a clear need: Help them shape a signature identity. We set out to do that more. We wanted to shape a cohesive narrative and Brand Story that not only would both captivate more women and inspire the Board itself.
Bring the Past Forward
Our first step was to discover the themes that would help us tell a new Brand Story. Our Research & Discovery helped us identify 5 key personality traits of the brand: Feisty. Witty. Open-Hearted. In-the-Know. Youthful. We narrowed their core values and showcased the Board’s mission-driven women by having them respond to questions such as What riles you up? What lights you up? What do you champion?
We defined 4 detailed ideal customer profiles and integrated research on Millennials’ expectations to help The Guild reach that audience. We offered a Brand Story promise and tagline that appeals to their ideal writers and truthfully expresses what they deliver on. Everything we were hearing kept pointing to the feeling that these accomplished and creative women around the world had not found a place where they fully belonged. The Guild offers that place.
Global Yet Distinct
We agreed The Guild deserved a distinct visual Story that also alluded to cultures from around the world. Of the 4 mood boards proposed, we landed on a variation of the Gypsy Soul.
The Guild had an existing logo with flying birds. We wanted to keep the birds because they are a universal symbol of the freedom The Guild provides. So we opted to use the birds as a secondary logo element.
To fashion a new logo that was elegant and flexible, we worked with one of The Guild’s star members – a poet and artist and activist – to integrate her richly textured artwork into the website and final logo. We asked Board members to submit their own handwriting. The final result is a logo we affectionately call Geia.
Geia evokes The Guild’s multi-cultural community at the center of the planet with a hint of a Yin-Yang integration. Geia showed up at the 40th Summer Conference.
We conceived The Guild Digital Village as The Guild’s way of expanding their offers and engagements online.
The copy needed not only to tell their new Brand Story. It needed to evoke the right feelings in a way that would appeal to intelligent, soulful women from around the world. We decided that the Home page should speak from brand mentor to potential heroic woman writer, and then end with a collective “we” to reflect the international community and movement that The Guild is building.
