Cities Thrive

Role: Designer

Back in November of 2016, New York City's First Lady, Chirlane McCray, launched The Cities Thrive Coalition, which builds and expands upon the key principles for action underlying NYC’s own groundbreaking mental health plan, ThriveNYC. Cities Thrive is a bipartisan group of mayors looking to develop mental health reform locally and nationally. At the inaugural launch of the coalition, elected officials, public health advocates and mental health professionals from across the country, came together for the first Cities Thrive conference. In the days leading up to the conference, I worked with the First Lady’s communications team to create a logo and the program booklet that was handed out to the attendees at the conference.

The start of the logo design began with utilizing the color scheme and typography of the original ThriveNYC logo. I felt that maintaining consistency would enhance brand recognition. I then began thinking about visual motifs that could tie together mental health and cities. This lead me to include parks and trees in my initial sketches. Below is the progression of the development of the Cities Thrive logo.

It came down to three logo concepts in which the middle option became the final approved logo.

In the following months after the first Cities Thrive conference, I created additional graphics and animations that highlighted the increasing number of cities that were joining the coalition.