The Collective Service

Rebuild from the ground up

Updating the old site page by page would have kept the structure and weight it needed to lose. So every page was rebuilt: a custom WordPress theme of 30 page templates, a new editing side, and content brought across through a repeatable importer that can be rerun and checked.

Set the weight limit before the design

One rule sat behind the design: when audiences conflict, responders win. So every page had to stay under 500 KB, about 10 seconds at 400 kilobits per second, and that limit was set first, so every template was built to it. Each download also states its format and size before it is pressed, so nobody spends scarce data on a file they did not expect.

Hold every document on the site

Many documents were only linked to, so they would stop working if a publisher moved a page. We fetched 155 of them, so the site now holds its own copies, with French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili versions where publishers offer them. Documents listed two, three or four times now appear once, with their other languages on the same page.

Treat the brand as part of the problem

A better website could not, on its own, explain what the Service is. So we made the case for a new identity alongside it. The reasons are set out below, under The brand.

Build for the people who will run it

A library only stays current if its own team can keep it current. The editing side has one form for each kind of content, and each form lists what is still missing before it can be published. Adding a document means pasting its address: its format, size and page count fill in by themselves. A built-in guide shows editors each job, screen by screen.

Try a new way into the library

Search only helps people who know the right words. The Knowledge bank lets a reader describe a situation in their own words and get advice drawn only from the library’s documents, with every point cited. When the library has no answer, it says so. It is an experimental part of the build.

It says what the Service is

Three separate parts join one body: distinct organisations, drawn as equals, becoming one service. A reader sees “together” before reading a word, so the mark works on the confusion the evaluation found every time it appears.

It keeps the partners equal

The Service is a partnership of equals. No part of the mark takes precedence, and a single quiet colour lets it sit beside four established logos without crowding them.

It matches how the partners work

Each partner pairs a symbol with its name. The Service was the only member of its own partnership without one.

It works in every language

The Service publishes in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish, and much of its work is in francophone and lusophone Africa. A symbol works in all of them. The name stays in English and the line beneath it is translated.

It works wherever the Service appears

The Service is increasingly found in feeds, browser tabs, group chats and on phones, where a wordmark cannot be read. Solid shapes also survive the stamps, badges and photocopies of field materials. Size was only one test of eight. Both logos were tested on meaning, small sizes, reusable parts, sitting with the partners, matching the voice, reliable reproduction, distinctiveness and whether rules can govern them.

It survives a change of name

The evaluation recommended that the partners consider changing the name. If they do, the mark stays and only the words beside it change.

It rests on evidence, at low risk

A 2019 study in the Journal of Marketing Research, across six experiments and 597 logos, found that more descriptive logos are easier to take in and are judged more authentic, most of all for brands people do not yet know well. The cost of changing is low: the name, where the recognition lives, stays, and the mark is one small file using fonts the site already loads. The risk of not changing is that the evaluation’s findings stay unaddressed at the most visible layer.

The brand guidelines

The identity goes further than the mark. The voice is plain, concrete, calm and honest, because jargon is a barrier to someone in the middle of a crisis. Colour has a job: ink for text, sand for backgrounds, and coral only for what is live now and the one action that matters.

All of this is set out in a 57-page design and brand document, shared with the partnership in October 2026. Part A makes the case and sets the guidelines: the evidence, the side-by-side tests, the cost and risk of changing, voice and tone, construction, clear space and minimum sizes, colour, type, photography, four language versions, use beside the partners and the rules. Part B is the design standard for the website, and every rule in it carries its reason and the kind of support behind it: the terms of reference, published evidence, a computed value, a standard or our own judgement.

The new mark is a proposal. The decision rests with the partners, and the new site carries it in the meantime.