I love designing brands for cooperatives. One of my best experiences was in London where I had to create the brand strategy of ICA, The International Cooperative Alliance, after winning a competition among 30 selected agencies specialized in branding from all over the world.
The ICA convened this competition to design the new identity of the World Cooperative Movement, a symbol that will eventually replace the rainbow figure with doves, unify the current regional references as well as promote the cooperative domain .coop as a sign of identity.
Being the strategist for the brand, I had to create the methodology to approach the insights of the brand and propose an image strategy. In other words, my duty was to find answers to this intercultural action and conceptualize the design process that the brand required.
After investigating 1,365 cooperatives around the world, I proposed changing the name of ICA to Coop. I came to that conclusion because distant countries as China, Russia, Namibia or the Dominican Republic, already used the acronym coop to communicate their identity, either from a pack or through a banner. Also, that strategy was essential to install the .coop to differentiate it from the .com. This particular situation was the one that gave us the impulse to use that domain as a brand since regardless of the native script that it is used, the entire world could access a cooperative site using those letters. Finally, I analyzed the logo graphic interaction with its two O’s, where my research detected that in Latin countries the co-op was seen as the right thing to do, while in the Saxons, the co-op was the one. Then the new Global Image for the Cooperative Movement was launched at the World Congress in Cape Town.
All this work was a beautiful challenge!
As the ICA Director of Communications stated, “Guerrini brought an exciting dimension in terms of their ability to engage with a global audience”.
In the past, other jobs that I did for cooperatives were creating the name, brand and packs for Mulini, a great cooperative that produces pasta in Argentina. Also, for the cooperative of architects “Societat Orgánica”, of Barcelona or for Wayra organic honey, from Coopsol, the honey producer cooperative of Santiago del Estero (Argentina). In the past, other jobs that I did for cooperatives were creating the name, brand and packs for Mulini, a great cooperative that produces pasta in Argentina. Also, for the cooperative of architects “Societat Orgánica”, of Barcelona or for Wayra organic honey, from Coopsol, the honey producer cooperative of Santiago del Estero (Argentina).
I hope more jobs like these come up!
Sebastian Guerrini
