Community Farm Alliance: Farm is the Foundation for Growth

The Community Farm Alliance is composed of a diverse range of Kentuckians. They are united by their belief in the right to agency in the public policies that shape our economy – our culture – and their abiding conviction in the farm as a foundation for growth. They function through community organizing, leadership development, and strategic alliances across organizations. This non-profit branding project echoes the complexity of the organization and the issues it faces. They needed something to connect.

We spent time tracing the journey of our food, starting at a local farm outside of Louisville. From there, we visited urban farmers’ markets. We spoke with farmers, store owners, and advocates who were all CFA members. The farms’ imagery was full of inspiration. We started there.

“It’s easy to use clichés, but really difficult to represent something that means many different things to many different people. We wanted to create something real, to add value to the conversation about food and where it comes from and why you should care and what it means to us.”
– Adam Kuhn, Creative Director

We created a comprehensive identity that takes the quilt as its inspiration and its framework. Pulling together disparate visual cues drawn from the farm, the city, the life of the organization – this is a patchwork. And it changes across its extensions, per audience, and over time. It grows.

The biggest touchpoint for this organization is their bumper sticker. It’s the clearest badge of honor. It looks great on a truck. Our first produced work for CFA was a bumper sticker that everyone could adopt. We also revisited the journey of food with a brand video that shows the CFA story come to life, from rural to urban.

Catching up with CFA, Executive Director Martin Richards told us that in addition to their developing programs, “Capacity has doubled and our communication products have received wide recognition.”