Logo. Your logo needs to work at every size, from a website favicon to a banner at an event. It needs to reproduce cleanly in full colour, single colour, and reversed on dark backgrounds. If your logo only works in one format, it’s going to cause problems. In 2026, it also needs to work as a social media avatar — which means it should read clearly at 40 pixels square.
Colour. Choose a primary palette of two to three colours and a secondary palette for supporting use. Your colours should be distinctive enough to recognise at a glance but also meet accessibility contrast requirements — a minimum 4.5:1 ratio for text against backgrounds. We’ve seen too many nonprofits choose beautiful brand colours that are unusable on their website because the contrast fails. Test this early.
Typography. One or two typefaces is enough. A display font for headings and a clean, readable font for body text. Make sure your body font is legible at small sizes and on screens — this rules out a lot of decorative options. Consider whether your fonts are available as web fonts and whether the licensing works for your budget.
Imagery. The photography and illustration style you use communicates as much as your words. Stock photography is fine as a starting point, but it should feel authentic to your organisation and the communities you serve. Generic smiling-people-in-an-office stock imagery does nothing for a nonprofit that works with rough sleepers or regional farmers. Where possible, invest in real photography of your actual work.
Consistency across digital touchpoints. This is where brand control has become harder. Your visual identity now needs to hold together across your website, email templates, social media profiles, video thumbnails, presentation templates, Zoom backgrounds, and potentially AI-generated content. A simple visual identity system — one that’s easy for non-designers to apply correctly — will serve you better than an elaborate one that only the designer understands.
