Case Study:

Small Hands
Against Big Phones
Club Branding

An angry, tiny-handed, passionate club of activists.

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Introduction

Smartphones have greatly improved many aspects of modern life. They're powerful tools that can serve anyone's needs—and yet they're failing a particular demographic: Small-Handed-People. The recent increasing size of phones poses many problems for my forever-small hands. With this student project, I developed the identity of a club that shares my struggle.

Services

  • Branding
  • Logo Design
  • Copywriting
  • Motion Graphics

Software

  • Illustrator
  • Photoshop
  • AfterEffects
  • InDesign

The Brand Strategy

Positioning Statement

Small Hands Against Big Phones is a club for tiny-handed people against the growing sizes of smartphones. They rally for universal size inclusion in the technology industry. It’s a geographically diverse club with chapters nationwide with activities spanning from emotional support to activism. They detest the need for tools designed to accommodate exclusive phone sizes like pop-sockets, rings, and phone cases for those who struggle to hold their phones. The smart-technology world should not exclude small hands from their ultrawide, HD, XXL world.

Core Attributes

Passionate, ambitious, outraged, grassroots, undeterred, community-focused, brave

Audience

  • Activists
  • 16-40 year olds
  • Small-Handed-People

The Identity Design

A Slap In The Face

The Logo

Small Hands Against Big Phones (SHABP) needed a impactful logo that's highly recognizable and expresses outrage. The high-risk approach to typography and color is inspired by the striking work of Paula Scher. It took studied negligence in order to create a coherent logo that felt spontaneous and rough around the edges. The details of the letterforms, shapes, and negative space were finely-tuned to sit harmoniously together in one shape.

Additionally, for the logo to be scalable, it needed marks that could be recognized in various sizes. I resolved to create a favicon for the smallest size, and two wordmarks.

SHABP Color Palete featuring piercing pink—a vibrant pink, acid sting—a vivd turqouise, vexed black—a deep mossy black, and sulfur contempt—a duller yellow.

High Contrast, Clashing, Complements

The Color Palete

Pulling vibrant colors opposite from each other usually creates discord in a color palete as the contrast is often irksome to the eyes. I used this knowledge to curate an electrifying color palete almost on the edge of being cacophonous. Acid Sting may be used in tints or shades to allow the primary Piercing Pink to shine.

SHABP typography featuring Cubano, Garage Gothic, Acumin Variable Concept, Fairplex Wide, and Gallaudet.

Words to arouse passion

Typography

Words are powerful! The typography of SHABP needs to support a lot of information to relay their words to a wide audience. Contrast, legibility, and volume were prioritized while creating the typographic style of SHABP.

Cubano is a sans-serif used for headlines. Garage Gothic is a condensed sans-serif for subheadlines. Body copy is in Acumin Variable. Fairplex Wide is a serifed font for captions and meta-data. Gallaudet is used as dingbats and bullet-points.

Campaign Materials

Printed

SHABP Business Cards that read:'We are the Tiny & Mighty Fight for Size Inclusive Technology' on the back.
Enamel pins of SHABP's logo, favicon, two illustrations of a hand dropping a phone, and a middle finger
SHABP stationery.
SHABP Buttons. Relevant messaging: 'We are the Tiny & Mighty Fight for Size Inclusive Technology;' '#endXXLPhones
SHABP Buttons. Relevant messaging: 'We are the Tiny & Mighty Fight for Size Inclusive Technology;' '#endXXLPhones
Billboard reads 'End Big Phones Now. Demand size inclusive technology. us.vsbigphones.org'

Campaign Materials

Digital

Reflection

For this student project, I had the freedom to choose my client. As someone with small hands and a big phone, I chose to do another branding project for an idea that came to me the semester prior. Initially, I was intimidated by the prospect of the "Small Hands Against Big Phones" Club because I had no idea what it would look like. I later found out that hashing that sort of challenge out is what makes student projects fun. Relying on the Brand Strategy I formulated was key in ensuring the brand was cohesive and fulfilled my vision.

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