Change Murmuration

THE YELLOW BRAND

To make a brand loved, it’s got to have a soul. And a soul dwells in a brand that’s crafted authentically.

Our brand is designed to bring the soul of YELLOW to life; and the soul of YELLOW is the possibility inherent in every young person.

OUR INSPIRATION

In designing YELLOW’s brand, including the user’s interaction with our website, we were informed by this notion of change murmuration.

Change murmuration is about the many working together to create the whole in collective motion. Murmuration is a phenomena noted in birds, where instead of flocking hierarchically, they flock together with any individual bird having equal power to impact the collective outcome of the entire flock. A murmuration is a dynamic, evolving and democratic structure where the input of any individual affects the form of the collective. This phenomena reflects our brand mindset, which holds in high regard the rhythm and beauty of collective action, and believes the power to alter the course of the entire world resides within every young child.

The blushing gradients on our website are a unique application of the beauty of the collective. They feel organic and emergent, with white space allowing them to breathe through the page and the screen. The website has two gradients, one being an ambient gradient that ‘breathes’ on its own in constant motion, and the other an interactive gradient that responds to the user’s movements with a cursor or finger.

The design demonstrates that each individual’s presence can have an impact on the outcome, and this is a metaphor for YELLOW’s approach to education. While schools traditionally say “We have a system, this is the way we do it, sit in line, stay in order,” what we’re saying is that every child has agency to initiate change for the collective by their interactions with the world around them.

OUR COLOR PALETTE

The YELLOW story is also about intersections and being greater than the sum of our parts. Beyond organic gradients, we bring this story to life through our color palette. Of course, with a name like YELLOW, we needed our brightest color to be a sunny yellow. But we wanted to convey that yellow is both a color and a mindset. In Pharrell Williams’ words, "YELLOW is more than a color: it’s a feeling, it’s a mindset, and it’s the lens of possibility through which we must view the future and through which the youth must view themselves and the world.” To make YELLOW really pop, we drew upon color theory and selected ultraviolet as our primary brand color. Purple is a complementary color to yellow, meaning that it creates a strong impact and contrast in our eye. We also love that purple is a color that brings two colors – red and blue – together to create something new and beautiful. Our additional palette of shades include colors that are also secondary colors (meaning they are created from two primary colors).

These perfect pairings are all about different things coming together, which metaphorically relates to how schools should be, where it’s about kids coming together and communities coming together, as opposed to the one-way direction of traditional schooling.

OUR FONT

Our font is bold and assertive, and the italics indicate an emphasis on forward motion. Typically, with an airy, fluid, feminine design like our blushing gradient, one would pair a serif or a lighter weight font. However, having that clash of boldness and delicacy is dynamic, and represents what YELLOW stands for—things intersecting, colors intersecting, people intersecting—as opposed to being expected and traditional.

We are looking at how every detail can add up toward this vision of intersectionality, of possibility, of murmuration. We wanted to balance authority, trust, transparency—the business, the experts—with the fluid optimism, curiosity, and creativity of youth.

THE POWER OF BRAND

YELLOW’s first priority is to abolish the concept of remedial. We don’t believe in labeling children as anything other than full of possibility. And regardless of their background, learning style, or self-perceived abilities, we believe they deserve every opportunity to reach their potential. This is not charity work — it’s an investment in the possibility of our future. We intentionally created a brand that does not feel charitable, or even educational, but is always shifting, changing, and growing.

YELLOW reimagines education as an ecosystem that teaches children for the future, for the innovation economy of digital and analogue creatives, not of factory lines and obedience. For the era we’re entering into, positive change is about imagination, it’s about creativity, and it’s about authentic expression of the individual. Historically, school has failed to reward these attributes. So YELLOW centers the child in this ecosystem approach, elevating their unique differences to prepare them to thrive as innovators in this new economy. We call this centering children within the “YELLOW Lens of Possibility”, and our brand embodies the unique possibility.

And we aren’t just bringing that lens to our school model, which we call YELLOW House. This lens is something through which everyone should look at the possibility of every child, and through which each child should view themselves and their world. YELLOW, and the children we nurture, will create a murmuration of positive change in education and beyond.

A brand is so much more than a logo or a color. It’s a story that gives meaning and context. To make the brand loved, it’s got to have a soul. The soul of YELLOW is the possibility in every young person — their creativity, their difference, and their agency to make themselves, each other, and the world the best they can be.