The John Templeton Foundation

Inspiring Awe & Wonder

The John Templeton Foundation (JTF) is a grant-making foundation that advances well-being through research that sits at the nexus of science and spirituality. JTF and Push10 have worked together for many years to continually evolve the Foundation’s identity and website to accurately translate the foundation’s mission and purpose for today’s modern audience.

Services

Brand Strategy, Brand Messaging, Logo Design, Visual Identity, Marketing Collateral, Web Strategy, Web Design, Web Development 

Problem

JTF's written and visual brand were academic and jargon filled. Key funding areas were unclear, and the Foundation received many unqualified grant applications as a result. The website failed to showcase the thought provoking research that the Foundation was funding.

Our Approach

We helped revitalize the Foundation’s written and visual brand, while continuing to honor JTF’s deep history. We rethought the website user experience and information hierarchy of the grant application process to reduce unqualified grant applicants. We helped JTF better highlight the work they fund in a public way using engaging storytelling across the site, and launching a new Templeton Ideas platform that helps achieve their goal of sparking curiosity.

01

Brand Strategy & Messaging

We started by interviewing board members and key stakeholders, reviewing existing research, and combing through past publications to understand the Foundation’s evolution so we could strategize a potential path forward. From there, we collaborated with the Foundation’s communications team to clarify and refine the organization’s core messaging, including the tagline, mission, vision, promise, and values.

John Templeton Foundation Logo Design by Creative Agency Push10
John-Templeton-Foundation-Visual-Identity-Branding-Canyon@2x
Templeton-Foundation-Tagline@2x

Creating Moments of Awe

Based on our research, we shifted the Foundation’s messaging strategy to be less academic and long form. We also crafted a new tagline “Inspiring Awe & Wonder” that focuses on connecting the big questions to daily life.

John Templeton Foundation Visual Identity Brand Imagery Canyons
Templeton foundation tagline text on night sky image
02

A Bold New Aesthetic

Once we established the brand strategy and messaging, our next step was to design a new logo and visual style for the Foundation. We created flexible versions of the primary mark to adapt to a wide variety of situations, both in print and on-screen. Then, we extended the logo design into a comprehensive brand with a full set of collateral, including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, memo pads, name tags, podium signs, presentations, wall signs and more.

John-Templeton-Foundation-New-Logo-Graphic-Design-beforeafter
John-Templeton-Foundation-Brochure-Graphic-Design

Before and After

Our initial research revealed that the existing nautilus symbol had deep equity within the JTF community. While this ancient symbol has many interpretations, the inner spiral is a recognized symbol of creation, fluidity, and evolution. Our logo harnessed these associations while capturing the spirit of exploration that lives at the center of the Foundation.

John Templeton Foundation Graphic Design Logo Evolution
John Templeton Foundation Brochure Graphic Design
John Templeton Foundation Tote Bag Graphic Design
John Templeton Foundation Iconography Graphic Design
John Templeton Foundation Brand Book Graphic Design
John Templeton Foundation Board Book Visual Identity Design
John Templeton Foundation Brand Design Typography

01

Noe Display Blod

Noe brings intelligence and modern sophistication to the brand’s primary headlines.

John Templeton Foundation Brand Design Typography

02

Baskerville URW

Baskerville creates elegance in the brand’s long-form body copy while ensuring legibility.

Blue

#012f8a

Gold

#c1862a

Cream

#fbf9f6

Teal

#71c0c5

Black

#000000

White

#ffffff

03

A Sound Web Strategy

A thoughtful web strategy is essential. User profiles helped us determine the ideal site structure while messaging guidelines outlined a central content strategy.

John-Templeton-Foundation-User-Personas-Brand-Strategy
John-Templeton-Foundation-Visual-Identity-Branding-Prayer

Who Will Be Visiting the Site, and Why?

Detailed user profiles helped us document and understand typical website visitors. Based on these audiences, we simplified the navigation to highlight Funding Areas, Grants, and Partnerships.

John Templeton Foundation User Personas Brand Strategy on mobile devices
John Templeton Foundation Visual Identity Imagery Prayer

Content Strategy Considerations

To inform the content creation process, we conducted an iterative workshop that resulted in practical messaging guidelines. From voice & tone to content heuristics and business goals, we helped the communications team rally around one central content strategy.

John Templeton Foundation Brand Strategy Voice and Tone Guidelines
04

Web Design

We extended the brand system onto the web, where the new user interface design elements worked together to highlight the Foundation’s ideals of humility, open-mindedness, and curiosity.

John Templeton Foundation Responsive Web Design on Laptop and Mobile Devices

Templeton Ideas

The Foundation’s new editorial home “Templeton Ideas” continues to grow in scope and reach. The Foundation recently launched a joint publication with Big Think and a new podcast. Templeton Ideas has also won awards from YouTube, the Davey Awards, and the dotCOMM Awards – among others.

John Templeton Foundation Responsive Web Design Ideas Blog
John Templeton Foundation Ideas Podcast Teaser by Creative Agency
John Templeton Foundation Visual Identity Cathedral
John Templeton Foundation Visual Identity Brand Imagery the Creation of Adam
John Templeton Foundation Mobile Responsive Web Design
John Templeton Foundation Interactive Timeline Web Design
05

Technology that Works

Our technical team connected the WordPress content management system to the client’s existing grant, calendar, and news databases. At a result, grant data can be searched or filtered by funding area, year, and geographic region.

John Templeton Foundation Tablet Responsive Designs Timeline and Grant Making
John Templeton Foundation Funding Areas in Hand Mobile Device
A strong foundation

The new brand and web design garnered positive feedback from the board, academic community, media, and philanthropic partners around the world.

100%

Increase in Grant Database Visits

After the launch of the redesigned site, overall traffic to the Our Grants section of the site increased. In particular, the average time spent on the Grantmaking Process page increased by almost a minute as users engaged with the redesigned content.

17%

Reduction in Funding Area Page Bounce Rate

The new site introduced individual funding area landing pages. These new pages maintain strong traffic and represent over 15% of the site’s pageviews, attracting potential grantees and partners to the Foundation’s areas of focus.

60%

Qualified Grant Applications in 2022

In 2022 the Foundation received 2,934 grant submissions, a record for any single cycle in JTF’s history. Sixty percent of the submissions cleared the Foundation’s rigorous criteria for consideration.

Push10’s team helped us refine our brand, clarify and sharpen the messaging, and create a visually stunning and highly user-friendly site for our stakeholders. We could not be more pleased with our Push10 experience.

Templeton Foundation

Michael Murray, Senior Vice President

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