America’s Promise Alliance (APA) recognizes that the challenges facing the next generation are too complex and interrelated for any one organization or institution to solve alone. For 25 years, they’ve worked to align and amplify the efforts of individual youth organizations to achieve inspiring outcomes at a national scale. But when America’s Promise Alliance first reached out to UME, the legacy organization — founded in 1997 in partnership with Presidents Clinton, Bush, Carter, Ford and Reagan and chaired by the late Ret. General Colin Powell —was in a moment of intense transition. With new leadership at the helm and a bold new direction to manifest, they needed a partner to help them reimagine their brand and bring their diverse stakeholders with them into a new era.
Despite individual organizations making herculean efforts, there are not enough structures connecting the youth-supporting field. So knowledge stays siloed. Work gets repeated. People feel alone. And impact stays limited. Enter America’s Promise Alliance — bringing the country’s most innovative youth organizations into a community of radical support and uniting them in powerful collective action. Members span from social justice and mental health to education and youth development to job training and economic mobility.
America’s Promise Alliance believes that we can create a more just and equitable America that empowers every next generation to lead our country forward. The diverse Alliance community works together to bring that vision to life. To reimagine the systems impacting young people and deliver the integrated support they need to grow into their power, fight for equality and build a better future — for themselves and all of us. UME elevated “for every next generation” as the Alliance tagline — rallying its diverse community behind a single unifying vision.
With its bold yet warm fonts and forms, the visual identity system for America’s Promise Alliance captures the momentum of the youth-supporting movement. UME brought this concept to life through a primary palette of black and white, with a spectrum of secondary colors applied as a dynamic heat map of evolving hues, embodying the visceral energy, optimism and activism of the Alliance membership. Photography plays a key role in the identity, providing simplicity and cohesion to the system and a sense of respect and admiration for the subjects. The logo mark embodies the diversity and humanity at the heart of the community.
As America’s Promise Alliance set out to define the next chapter of our organization, UME partnered alongside us to create a new brand that accurately reflects our new direction. The UME team was fiercely committed to crafting the most authentic and aspirational work possible — allowing us to remain true to our roots while articulating our new charge.
.jpg)