Johnson Banks rebrands Action Against Hunger to unify the global charity and its message

Johnson Banks has rebranded charity Action Against Hunger, creating a bold new symbol and slogan for the organisation as part of a project to unify the organisation’s visual identity.

The previous symbol of an illustrated plant and its roots, had been used by the charity for decades, but its design was dividing opinion. “For long-term employees, it had longevity and familiarity on its side,” says Michael Johnson. “For newcomers and outsiders, it was confusing – was it a symbol for a farming organisation, or (in some people’s eyes) a marijuana leaf?”

The new symbol uses a more curvilinear leaf shape on top, and replaces the roots with a water droplet mark, representing two key elements of the charity’s work, food and water. It uses some details from the previous logo – such as the colour scheme and inverted image on the bottom – to carry over recognisable elements of the charity’s identity.

The design studio also encouraged the 40-year-old French-founded charity to unify its global outposts, which span 50 countries, by universally adopting the name Action Against Hunger in their local language, rather than the acronym ACF (Action contre la Faim) which proved confusing in non French speaking countries.

Alongside this, the studio devised a new set of slogans that used “for” and “against” as a hook, which Michael says translated easily. “We were looking for a rallying cry that could work in dozens of languages, and and realised that there is a ‘for’ and ‘against’ in every language – pour/contre, para/contra, für/gegen.

Bringing together the bold symbol, the unified name (in Futura Bold) and slogans, together with new photography and a modernised graphic design, Johnson Banks has created a comprehensive identity to be applied worldwide.