North Berkeley Now!

Branding & Signs

Back in 2018 the city of Berkeley started a community process to decide what to do about the giant surface parking lot at North Berkeley BART. Pro-housing neighbors got to work getting organized and we started putting up yard signs saying "Let's Build Paradise Instead of a Parking Lot" with the URL "YesOnOurParkingLot.org." In 2019 we renamed the group after South Berkeley Now!, who was also organizing to building housing on their local BART parking lot, Ashby. I created a brand that was homegrown but clean and distinctive without looking too slick.

Logo

Yard Signs

Characters

I crafted some archetypes to represent different kinds of people who benefit from this new transit-oriented housing. The cyclist was based on a local friend who is a fierce advocate for safe streets as well as new housing. The grandma with the stroller is based on another friend whose son (a teacher) couldn't afford to live in Berkeley so she built an ADU in her backyard for herself and gave her son the house he grew up in (she also appears below in the signs & placards section).

Cyclists and pedestrians who want North Berkeley to be safe for all road users

Workers with incomes too high for subsidized housing but not high enough to buy

Aging residents who want their kids and grandkids to be able to live close by

Urbanists and other people who want to live more sustainably (i.e. less car dependent)

"Blue vs Green"

Something that happened during the community process was a stark difference in the colors people used to show their support or opposition to dense transit-oriented homes. When I spoke about this effort at YIMBYtown 2024 I showed a slide comparing the proliferation of green (anti-housing) signs at the beginning of the process being slowly crowded out by blue (pro-housing) signs farther along in the process. I didn't know that an arbitrary color choice could become so important!

Signs & Placards

Because the effort to get Berkeley to sign the agreement with BART spanned multiple groups and not just North Berkeley Now!, the "MOU NOW" signs were "off-brand" so NBNow didn't look like the only group involved. We did still use the same blue color on all the handheld signs.

North Berkeley BART's 50th birthday

North Berkeley BART opened on January 29, 1973 so we celebrated their (its?) 50th birthday. I made a 70s-themed set of graphics and gave out special buttons on the day.

I want to design more projects like this! Get in touch and let's discuss your project

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