Legal Hackers is a grassroots movement advocating for improving our legal system with technology. To that end, they embarked upon a badge campaign to promote Open Educational Resources for Law. They reached out to Library Innovation Lab— my department at Harvard Law School— to see if we could contribute a graphic identity for the initiative.
In my initial 5-minute google images investigation, I found dozens of general OER logos, but nothing for law, specifically. I didn't see any ubiquitous use case. So I responded with a few questions— who do they anticipate would deploy the badge? Who would see it? What is the desired effect for those using and receiving this communication? In what context would it be used?
They said a network of organizations that champion OER for law would deploy the badge to impress the legal academic community at large with their commitment to openness. They imagine its primary form would be digital but want something that would work in print, and they'd like different badge 'levels' but don't know what they'd represent. They sent inspo that looked like slightly modernized retro award ribbons— not too surprising for the generally visually conservative legal scene.
I pulled three distinct directions from my sketches— two similar to their inspo and one bolder geometric midcentury idea and sent them over. To my surprise, they dug the midcentury-looking idea the most but didn't connect with it as much as they'd hoped.
Rather than tweak that one, I sketched out some less staid offerings, including a rough version of the final mark, and sent them over. They immediately connected with the doorway-in-the-dark sketch, so I fleshed it out, and this is what I wound up with:
