The client
WACID advises governments, donors and NGOs across West Africa — work where credibility is the product. Its materials appear in ministerial briefings, donor proposals and program reports, often alongside the region's largest institutions.
The challenge
Development-sector branding tends toward two failure modes: NGO-generic or consultancy-slick. WACID needed a system that signals institutional seriousness and regional groundedness — and that works as hard in a printed proposal as on screen.
What we did
A palette that encodes the mission. Deep governance navy as the anchor (70% of any composition), emerald for growth and agriculture, gold for energy and warmth — deployed in a disciplined 70/20/10 ratio so documents read as authoritative, never decorated.
Typography for evidence. A tight-tracked modern grotesque for display, a calm humanist sans for body text, and a monospace face reserved for what matters most in this sector: the numbers. Figures, stats and eyebrow kickers are set in mono — "1.2M people reached" looks like data, because it is.
A voice with rules. Sentence-case headlines, verbs first (Drive. Strengthen. Empower. Measure. Connect.), results before methods, quantification wherever honest — and an explicit ban list: no "revolutionary," no "game-changing," no donor-jargon density. The signature devices — letter-spaced mono eyebrows, 36×3px accent rules above stats, navy panels for covers — carry across reports, slides, stationery and the web.
Delivered as a working system: tokens, components, foundations, stationery and slide templates, plus the WACID website.
Results
- One identity system spanning digital, documents and presentations
- A voice framework any staff member or partner agency can apply consistently
- Brand infrastructure ready for donor-facing and government-facing materials alike