One in five European adults has difficulties reading and writing. Stichting Lezen en Schrijven’s mission is to reduce and prevent literacy difficulties in the Netherlands and Europe. They asked us to revitalize their brand identity, to increase their accessibility and recognizability for a wide audience. And so bring coherence to the brand, ensuring sub-brands and campaign materials are recognizably theirs.

As the basis for the concept we used illustrations constructed in an iconic style with geometric shapes and a strict color palette. The illustrations don’t just create an iconic identity, they also serve the practical purpose of making texts more accessible for a less literate audience. The illustrations are never an end in themselves, but are always used to strengthen and clarify the text. This is already clear in the logo, where an eye (reading) and a pencil (writing) visualize the name of the foundation, and at the same time the simple geometric illustration creates an iconic brand. In the same way ilustrations and text always go hand in hand, throughout the entire identity.

The minimal color palette ensures coherence and recognizability. The colors underline the human aspect, with their skin tones of light to dark pinkish shades. A strong ochre, black and two shades of white complete the palette. The range of five skin tone shades ensures diversity in the images, as hair is always shown as black, hair color can never become an issue.

Accessibility is key in today’s brand identities and communication styles, especially when it concerns NGOs or charities. And literacy is not the only topic that needs to be accounted for. But when accessibility becomes a starting point, instead of an afterthought, it will feed creativity rather than constrain it. This is what we discover more and more, and the Reading and Writing Foundation’s style is just one iconic example where this truth emerges. Not just the illustrations and their colors drive accessibility, but also the typography and lay-out principles.

During the design process we had to remain critical about accessibility at every step. This had an impact in our choices for typography, color, layout and illustration. We learned a lot about readability and which type families are most accessible to less literate people. That is also why we use a larger type size and leading than we normally would.

The resulting style is not just accessible itself, but serves as a showcase for accessibility. When the foundation pushes organizations and governments to become more accessible, their own communication style is used as a tool to show how it is done.