Celebrity chef José Andrés’ nonprofit World Central Kitchen (WCK) swiftly mobilized to provide millions of meals in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Suddenly in the spotlight as a major relief organization, WCK’s brand (including its complicated but beloved multicolored logo) needed a refresh to match the professionalism and impact of their expansive efforts.

The whole world in his pan

We honed in on an approach to refineding the brand through a series of explorations and strategy workshops with the WCK team. It was important to preserve the essence of the existing logo — the pan silhouette, bubble world map, and warm, multicolored palette — while solving stylistic and logistical problems and building a more useful set of logo variationslockups. The new brand look reflected the weight that the “World Central Kitchen” name already carried in the global impact field.

Mapping Impact

In addition to the new logo, we collaborated with the WCK team to conceptualize, design, and produce an engaging map-inspired 2018 annual report that showcases the breadth of their work that year.

We extended the brand’s new color-blocked style with hand- drawn accents in the annual report, applied the new brand to a promotional video featuring José Andrés and WCK in action, and designed restaurant bill inserts with a “Share a Meal” campaign in connection with the UN’s World Food Day.

wck around the world

WCK is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises —and their colorful brand travels with them. We like to think (and we’re not biased!) that the logo is a vibrant sign of hope and hospitality on food labels, t-shirts, and trucks at every stop.

In the years since the rebrand, WCK has provided more than 600 million meals during crises including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine invasion.Their impressive work gets the logo serious attention, including a feature on the massive NASDAQ billboard in Times Square, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and on the cover of TIME Magazine.

We’re proud of our work with World Central Kitchen not just because the results were beautiful, impactful, and meaningful, but because the WCK team was (and still continues to be, nearly a decade later) dedicated, passionate, and inspiring.