I am so, so excited to share this new work with you. About six weeks ago, Josh and Jenny Solar (of Solar Photographers and Banana Abby fame) contacted me about a new project they were planning: The Happy Family Movement. It’s impossible for me to do a better job of explaining their motivation than they can, so here’s what they have to say:

Jenny & I talk a lot about what mark we want to leave on this world. How can we make the world a better place? What do WE have to offer? We’ve spent many nights up late talking about just that… about what we’re passionate about. About our WHY… it always comes back to our relationships with our loved ones. The ones we’re connected to the most, each other and our kids. We live our life pretty unconventionally. Both Jenny & I are pretty much stay at home parents. When we are spending time away from our kids, it’s doing something we love, photographing couples in love and families with strong connections.

Being with our kids and doing what we love has taught us many things, but the most important is that we should be LOVING the life we’re living, and we do our best to do just that…

So, where does that leave us? With a new project, this project, which started just six short weeks ago, yet truly started six short years ago when our first child, Max, was born. It started with a tiny idea and happy music, but it also started with a much bigger idea, years ago, an idea that WE could raise a happy, loving family. An idea that WE could do things differently, that WE could have fun with our kids, that WE could live by our own rules.

So, with a name like the Happy Family Movement, it seems pretty clear that we needed a visual identity that is, well, happy, right? When we talked about what would work best for this project, we decided pretty quickly that a strong, typographic logo and type-based visual identity elements would work best. I mean, it’s pretty hard to “own” an icon that says happy. And we knew we needed strong, clear, bright colours that were youthful but not childlike. Overall, we wanted to communicate a very strong vibe of positive, happy, loving energy.

The Happy Family Movement logo comes in three colour ways, so that Josh & Jenny can have maximum flexiblity in using it:

Aren’t you smiling already?

Next we tackled the Happy Family Movement website.

See? Lots of strong type (oh League Gothic and Museo Sans, how I love thee!). Bright colours. And fun icons.

When you visit the Happy Family Movement website, you’ll find a bunch of fun features. Interested in happy music? Then sign up for their weekly Music for Happy People playlist:

[Trust me. They have great taste in music!]

Want to bring a little more fun back to family meal time? Then try out their latest challenge:

[This is a family that loves pancakes. I think folks who sign up are in for a good time!]

The Happy Family Movement will be offering some really fun products. The first Adventure in a Box is focused on Road Trippin’:

[Can you tell I had a ton of fun working on this project?]

How will you know if something is Happy Family Movement approved? We’ve got some fun badges:

There are tons of other fun visual identity elements that are still in the works. I’ll do an update soon!

This is the third project I’ve done with the Solars and I continue to be inspired by their passion, their commitment to living life out loud, and their incredibly positive attitude. I simply could not ask for a better client relationship. And I am so pleased to play a role in this wonderful project.

Please, do check it our for yourself. You’ll find the Happy Family Movement website here, and you can follow the Solars on their own happy family adventure on their blog, here.