Olami: Brand Identity, Creative Direction, Brand Activation

Olami
Brand Identity, Creative Direction, Brand Activation

Olami is a 20-year-old organization that began as a financial backer for Jewish outreach programs across college campuses and young professional networks. It grew very quickly to encompass 300+ locations across 30 countries with 1,000 educators working across those locations. Over time, additional programs were created to include trips to Spain, Poland, and beyond; tech, business, and internship opportunities; hundreds of online and real-life weekly programming; and yearly global summits for student leaders. Today, Olami impacts approximately 1 million young Jews globally.

The impetus for this rebrand was a major organizational restructuring within the Olami network. Whereas previously, Olami operated primarily as B2B - backing independently run programs across locations - now, all programs, sub-brands, and branches would be streamlined under one unified, Olami master brand. Practically, this meant that over the course of a 2-year rollout, all divisions would be renamed to lead with the word "Olami." More importantly, this change meant that the direct Olami audience would now be the campus students and young Jewish professionals themselves - the implications of that are huge. The brand would now operate directly B2C, and thus, we were tasked to turn the Olami brand into something that a young college student would be proud to wear and represent.

Goodbye corporate Olami. Hello millennial Olami.

Babble on Talmud is an experimental learning platform delivered via
Youtube, Spotify, and other media outlets every single day for a committed 7.5 years. The channel delivers daily Daf Yomi content spoken by Sruli Rapps, Babble on Talmud's curious, entertaining, and humble founder.

The name "Babble on Talmud" is a play on the channel's literary source: the Babylon Talmud. Get it? Babble-on, Babylon. Say it out loud.

Olami is a 20-year-old organization that began as a financial backer for Jewish outreach programs across college campuses and young professional networks. It grew very quickly to encompass 300+ locations across 30 countries with 1,000 educators working across those locations. Over time, additional programs were created including trips to Spain, Poland, and beyond; tech, business, and internship opportunities; hundreds of online and real-life weekly programming; and yearly global summits for student leaders. Today, Olami impacts approximately 1 million Jews ages 18-33 globally.

The impetus for this rebrand was a major organizational restructuring of the Olami network. Whereas previously, Olami operated primarily as B2B - backing independently run programs across locations - now, all programs, sub-brands, and branches would be streamlined under one unified, Olami master brand. Practically, this means that over the course of a 2-year rollout, all divisions would be renamed to lead with the word "Olami." More importantly, this change meant that the direct Olami audience now became the campus students and young Jewish professionals themselves. The implications of that are huge. The brand is now operating as B2C, and Olami would have to become something a young college student would be proud to be a part of.

Goodbye corporate Olami, hello millennial Olami.

LOGO Story

The word "Olami" has two literal translations in Hebrew: "my world" and "global." The old logo was a straightforward representation of a globe. The new logo presents a bold and powerful wordmark in modified Founders Grotesk, leading with the O and growing towards the future. In its simplest form, it represents the connection between the world and the self.

The "O" motif gets used throughout the identity sparingly but effectively.

Logo Story

The word "Olami" has two literal translations in Hebrew: "my world" and "global." The old logo was a straightforward representation of a globe. The new logo presents a bold and powerful wordmark in modified Founders Grotesk, leading with the O and growing towards the future. In its simplest form, it represents the connection between the world and the self.

The "O" motif gets used throughout the identity sparingly but effectively.

Logo animation by Mama

Every one of Olami's branches and sub-brands needed their own logo, and Olami corporate needed a simple-enough system to create new logos as needed in the future.

The solution to this was threefold: a robust color system - each sub-brand can choose and own their own, straightforward logo lockups using only one font family (Founders Grotesk by Klim Type Foundry), and a robust layout system easy enough to build in Canva. All grounded with a strong, leading Olami logo.

It was crucial that campus branches be able to own their native, campus colors. We knew that the students wouldn't feel proud to wear the brand otherwise. The color and layout system was built with this in mind, allowing Olami campus logos to consistently appear in their own colors, so long as they're used alongside black and white.

GRID & Visual SYSTEM

Next, we needed to build a layout system for Olami that could be used in-house across branches, and primarily by Olami educators - not designers. This meant a few things: the layouts would have to be managed through Canva, they would need to be conceptually simple, and they would need to be technically difficult to mess up. To accomplish this, an 8-section grid system was developed that could be successfully applied across dimensions in seven steps.

Grid & visual System

Next, we needed to build a layout system for Olami that could be used in-house across branches, and primarily by Olami educators - not designers. This meant a few things: the layouts would have to be managed through Canva, they would need to be conceptually simple, and very difficult to mess up. To accomplish this, an 8-section grid system was developed that can be successfully applied across dimensions in seven steps.

The Olami grid system is based on a simple 8-section grid, which can be applied to any dimension or composition. Like the logo, the grid starts with the placement of the "O", or a circle, and grows from there.

Applications only utilize Founders Grotesk in X-Condensed, Condensed, and Regular styles.

Because Olami programming ranges from serious to fun and everything in between, we created a "cheat-sheet" for different moods within the visual design system.

Brand activation

For brand launch, we helped support branches and sub-brands re-introduce themselves to the world as an Olami brand. To do this, we provided social assets as well as a brand launch campaign video. We partnered with South-Africa-based agency, Mama, for the launch video and moving campaign assets.

Brand activation

For brand launch, we helped support branches and sub-brands re-introduce themselves to the world as an Olami brand. To do this, we provided social assets as well as a brand launch campaign video. We partnered with South-Africa-based agency, Mama, for the launch video and moving campaign assets.