In the spring of 2024, I was approached to develop branding for a new program called B-Biz. The Building Business Network (B-Biz) program is through the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Its goal is to improve the speed and scale of adoption of high-performance building technologies in communities with the lowest rates of adoption by demonstrating innovative business model solutions and addressing barriers in the market.

The B-Biz team came to the NREL communications team asking for powerful, consistent branding to help their program gain participants and credibility for its launch which would hopefully help it earn greater support from DOE in future years. New EERE branding had just rolled out, and the team did not have permission to create a new logo. With this in mind, we opted to meet their request by creating something that felt differentiated from EERE while also fully conforming to the new EERE guidelines.

We successfully created an identity for B-Biz by honing in on a few features of the new EERE branding. The EERE color palette leads with green, so we chose to use it sparingly and instead lead with blues and yellows from the palette. We created a colorful gradient that exuded a futuristic, friendly tone. And we regularly used the angular shape seen in many EERE templates. Aside from those differences, we followed the EERE branding – including the EERE logo on all assets, using its font, following its icon style, layout considerations, photography guidance, and components.

This visual identity was a success all around. We created assets like a PowerPoint template, an infographic, and email signatures, as well as all event graphics for their pilot program in Washburn, Wisconsin. The B-Biz team regularly praised us all year long for how well each asset looked and for the visual consistency.

Clients: The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; The National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Team: Dominique Barnes, Design Lead for Buildings; Alyssa Bersine, Communications Project Manager; Alex Kramer, Researcher and co-lead of the B-Biz team; Rachel Romero, Senior Engineer and Project Leader, Residential Buildings Research and co-lead of the B-Biz team

Scope

• Visual Identity

• Color

• Layout Direction

• Creative Elements

• Typography

• Animation