CAFO

CAFO is an international alliance working on behalf of vulnerable children: a parent organization, eight initiatives and a wide network of member organizations. Over time, each initiative had grown its own name, its own look and its own way of talking. A supporter could give to three of them and never know they were connected.

The eight initiatives served eight distinct audiences, and together they were doing remarkable work. Each spoke to a different supporter and did its own part toward the shared goal, and every one had earned the right to sound like itself. Folding them into one look would have cost the very thing that made each initiative work.

I'd spent years leading creative strategy and design inside CAFO. In 2023, after I'd left, I rebuilt the whole brand and its architecture through Anon, knowing exactly where the seams were. The parent was redrawn first. Then each initiative kept its own name, its own cause, its own audience and its own room to speak, with a clear and consistent tie back to the parent. The architecture decided what holds across all eight and what bends to each.

The tie back to the parent. It had to be clear enough that a supporter recognizes the family instantly, and light enough that no initiative feels like a sub-brand. Getting that balance right across eight very different causes was most of the work, and almost none of it is visible.