Level Up Your Storytelling – Turn Ideas Into Impact
Level Up Your Storytelling – Turn Ideas Into Impact
The March on Washington Film Festival had grown beyond a name and identity tied to one format and one historical reference point. The organization needed to evolve without losing the recognition, trust, and civil rights legacy it had built. Founder Robert Raben traced the organization’s expanded mission back to a trip with Congressman John Lewis, and the reframed positioning: telling the untold and mistold stories of the Civil Rights Movement through film, art, and writing, needed a name and mark that could carry that scope without losing the weight of where it came from.
Black Digital developed a brand system honoring the organization’s history, created a new identity supporting film, art, writing, and civic dialogue, and delivered a complete logo, wordmark, and tagline system along with brand guidelines for consistent application across programs. Getting there wasn’t a quick logo swap: the team presented more than 20 initial concepts, then carried the strongest direction through nearly 10 rounds of revision with the organization’s community and stakeholders before landing on the identity that became March On! The new wordmark draws directly from the hand-lettered “I AM A MAN” protest signs carried during the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike led by Rev. James Lawson, bold, DIY letterforms built for a moment when action meant marching, not tweeting, paired with a new tagline, “Stories That Move.” Shortening the name from March on Washington Film Festival to March On! broadened what the organization represents: not just an annual festival, but a platform for the icons, foot soldiers, and everyday citizens who moved the civil rights movement forward. The rollout itself was staged rather than a single reveal: social teasers built anticipation, a launch message from organizational leadership explained the new direction to the community directly, and a produced logo-reveal video introduced the mark, all timed against a single synchronized day-of-launch update across the website, social channels, email platform, and e-signatures.
An organization built on civil rights legacy needs a rebrand that honors that history while opening room to grow. This gave March On! an identity that could support its full range of storytelling work, not just its annual festival, and a wordmark whose form carries the same history the organization exists to tell.
Brand Strategy
Identity System
Logo
Wordmark
Tagline System
Brand Guidelines
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