Moody Nolan Announces a New Brand

In 2020, the global pandemic asked us to reimagine how we live. Past ways of being collapsed, while new ways of working, parenting, educating, and connecting emerged. In 2021, we received the AIA Firm of the Year award, ushering Moody Nolan into unprecedented recognition, and an opportunity to re-affirm who we are. The following two-year exploration underpinned an overriding motivation: to confirm that who we say we are, matches how people experience who we are.

We further defined our firm values, set strategic targets, and imagined the road ahead together.

The values that shape who we are remain true to who we’ve always been—authentic, diverse, innovative, accountable, human-centered, and humble. We clarified what our values mean to us: how we embody them, and how they are expressed through our visual brand.

Our rebrand sets in motion the next era of design excellence for Moody Nolan. The first 40 years were guided by the leadership and vision of my father, Curt Moody. Over the next 40 years, we’ll continue to pursue that same path of excellence, endeavoring to improve every life we touch through design.

The new logo gestures to the roots of our practice—a place where everything begins—a hand-drawn sketch. This element centers our humanity and the remarkable reality of our work, where a napkin sketch is realized in the skyline of a community.

The typeface selection, much like our firm, comes from a story. Africa is home to more than 2,000 languages, with scripts containing rich cultural history. Kigelia was created to unify the most prominent writing systems in Africa. It offers technical functionality previously unavailable for several languages on the African continent, while also providing support for other world languages. Named after the Kigelia Africana tree which occurs throughout tropical Africa, the typographers responsible for Kigelia hope to promote literacy and commerce in Africa, while maintaining reverence for the diversity of language represented.

Our new typeface represents through type, the core of Moody Nolan: a diverse and culturally rich organization, concerned with preserving and promoting humanity through design.

Our new website showcases the breadth of our work, bringing transformational design to communities who need it most. Our featured projects showcase decades of collaboration with clients and partners around the world, many of whom have partnered with us from the start.

But most importantly, it features the people of Moody Nolan—their work, ideas and the unique perspectives that make our organization what it is.

I am honored to stand in this present moment, looking ahead to an amazing future where everything we do is aligned in the effort to improve lives. Our new brand expression represents an important step in that journey. Our plan is to keep moving forward one step at a time, together.

Thank you for being part of it and supporting it—for all of us!

My best,

Jonathan Moody
CEO