Rebranding of the new World IA Association

Grace G Lau -

Any rebranding project is a massive undertaking. As part of a nonprofit organization run by volunteers, the rebranding of World Information Architecture Day started in summer 2021 and was officially revealed December 2021.

The cumulation of this project resulted in written form: a Medium article written with Andrea Rosenbusch, fellow co-president of the new World Information Architecture Association.

Introducing… the new World Information Architecture Association
The rebranding of the nonprofit organization behind World IA Day
World Information Architecture AssociationGrace G Lau
The public announcement shared on December 7, 2021

The Journey

Rebranding Workshop started with organization mission, June 2021
Thinking about tag lines... Eventually we dropped this since we kept going back to the current tag line "Local connections. Global Impact" June 2021
Brainstorming organization names, June 2021

  • Brainstorming
  • Board discussions
  • Designing a blind poll to share with global board and community advisors
  • Crafting the public announcement
  • Brand alignment on social media, documentation, and other communication rollout
  • Community research project
  • ... more stuff that hasn't yet been included

The Outcome

Twitter Acknowledgement from Peter Morville
Twitter acknowledgement from Andrew Hinton

Learnings

There's still more that hasn't been done. It's too soon to say what I learned from this. But... at face value, considerations for rebranding an organization take a lot of strategic planning and communication. I've only scratched the surface of this rebranding.