The Valley Child Development Center was honored to have our logo created by Bruce Nelson. Mr. Nelson is retired Vice Chairman of the Omnicom Group (NYSE:OMC), one of the world’s largest marketing communications holding companies. He specialized in providing strategic expertise and counsel to over two dozen Omnicom companies to help accelerate their growth; and also specialized in building extensive cross-disciplinary, multi-company networks for clients around the world. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, and Director of Worldwide Accounts in International advertising. Notably, Mr. Nelson was the principal strategist in twice redefining the credit card/charge card category. He was the prime architect behind the breakthrough repositioning and successful re-launching of the American Express Gold Card in 1979. And then followed that as the principal architect behind the breakthrough positioning and creation of The Platinum Card, three years later. He is the author of long-running campaigns that redefined their categories: “Higher Standards” for Bank of America; “Minds Over Money” for Shearson Lehman Brothers; and “These Times Demand The Times” for The New York Times. In addition, Mr. Nelson was the author of highly recognized campaigns for Coca-Cola, Alka-Seltzer, and Exxon, to name a few. And the architect and author of the wildly successful multi-continent launch of Chocapic and Honey Nut Cheerios for Nestle Cereal Partners Worldwide. We sincerely thank Bruce for giving his time and talents to create our meaningful logo and donate our signage on the exterior of our facility.
The Story Behind The Valley Child Development Center Logo:
One of the great sensitivities of small children is the prevalence of rounded corners on everything; the absence of sharp edges being both the critical safety element, as well as the physical expression that their freedom to touch will not result in a negative experience. So the typeface we chose has rounded corners, with not a sharp edge in sight.
Second, we put the whole name of the Center in brackets --- to communicate that what is inside the structure is indeed ‘A Place.’ And a safe, happy place, it is. Also, the brackets represent on a more abstract level, the profiles of little children.
Now, the reasons for the colors:
We start with the most nurturing color --- Green --- that then with the next word ‘Valley’, in Sky Blue, would capture ‘The Valley’ in its most idealistic sense. There’s nothing more hopeful than green shoots and blue skies; and there’s nothing more hopeful than a young child. The next color --- Red --- is all about graphically focusing our attention on the purpose of the organization: The Child. Red declares the Child’s importance with great energy and optimism. Which brings us to the Deep Maroon/Brown expressing ‘Development.’ It reflects the earth from which the Green will spring and which the Blue Skies will bathe. The color tone is meant to have more vitality than simply brown, with the deep maroon giving it both robustness and a more contemporary feel. Finally, the Teal. Again, it’s meant to reflect the warm vitality of the Center, and the enthusiasm and optimism of all that work there, along with the modernity of the place that’s been created. Teal has an elegant, bright life to it, and without graphically shouting, it still has a sense of internal energy.
These qualities come together to create an expression of great confidence and competence. Taken as a whole, these colors create the friendly, warm, happy, capable sensibility that the Center promises.
