Code Red PA
A Movement With a Name, But Nothing Else
Code Red PA came to us with something many clients don't have at the start: a name with real intention behind it. The initiative — launched through the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and driven by a coalition of medical and mental health professionals — was built on the premise that gun violence is a public health epidemic. Our job was to build the brand from the ground up: logo, color palette, typography, and visual language that could carry that message with authority.
Grounded Before It Was Designed
Before any visual decisions were made, we conducted discovery interviews with the initiative's core participants — gathering the history of the movement, understanding their beliefs, and learning about their network across Philadelphia. That groundwork shaped everything that followed.
Trust, Credibility, Urgency
The identity is professional and unflinching. A red and white palette signals both medical authority and alarm. Black and white photography treated with a grainy texture gives the work an editorial weight that matches the seriousness of the issue — less campaign, more reckoning. Credible enough for clinical and policy settings, direct enough to reach a broader public.
A System Ready to Use
With the identity established, we extended it into everything the coalition needed to show up consistently: brand guidelines, website copy edited to reflect the brand voice, business card and letterhead templates, and social media templates for the initiative's interns to run a public campaign.