GIST Branding
I worked closely with American Helicopter Museum and Education Center, to create a logo for their Girls in Science and Technology (GIST) program. The program is usually held at the Museum, but because of circumstances of COVID-19, is moving to a virtual program. The program is aimed at girls in grades 3–8, which is something I always consider when picking typefaces and style.
The inspiration for this comes from their mission to bridge the gender gap in STEM, Girls in Science and Technology (GIST) is meant to be a fun, educational, hands-on program that provides girls with experience in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Using the pre-existing dark blue associated with the museum, I added a few more youthful colors to gear it more towards kids, while still calling back to the museum. The swoosh over the 'G' is a callback to the swoosh of the helicopter in the original museum logo, but what was fun was that it could also be interpreted as an orbit in space. Bubbles dotting the eye could be interpreted as planets, or fizzing bubbles from a beaker. The abstract nature of this encourages imagination and interpretation from the girls in the program. Luckily, planets and beakers both represent GIST, as they teach both astronomy and chemistry!
Character Design
Another benefit of the GIST program is that they provide girls with female role models. They study STEM disciplines at local universities, and work in STEM at local companies and academic institutions. When reviewing designs together, we realized, yet again, how 'male' the Museum's perspective has been in the past. They've never had anything with a helicopter that was designed to be female. With that in mind, I created "Jean," making her a new mascot for the kid's play area, pop in character for CTAs, etc.
We named her Jean, after Jean Ross Howard Phelan, who established the Whirly Girls, an organization for female helicopter pilots that started with 13 members and now has several thousand. The museum has a small exhibit on them, which made it a perfect choice.
