When it comes right down to it, Southeast Kentucky Economic Development (SKED) wants to do one thing for clients and prospective businesses in the region: Help them do business better.

And they’ve been doing just that for 24 years through their lending, training and recruitment programs. It’s the path they see to a better economy — and a better future — in southeast Kentucky. The challenge, however, has been how to communicate it.

Through P&P’s Brand Builder process, we were able to get down to brass tacks about what SKED offers to the region, how they offer it, and most importantly, why they offer it. Developing SKED’s tagline, “Let’s do business better,” a positioning statement and messaging helped us also give visual clarity to SKED’s brand.

We combined the three existing arrows pointing up and to the right in SKED’s logo into one, maintaining the same direction but instead using three colors to symbolize SKED’s core programs combining to drive economic improvement. We updated their thin, serif font to a more bold, modern sans serif, and the blue and orange colors to deeper hues while also expanding the color palette. 

While the brand changes are more subtle, visitors will see the biggest difference in SKED’s website, which had not been updated in more than a decade. We completely redesigned and redeveloped SKED’s site, adding loan application functionality while carrying the messaging through in a way that explains how SKED is helping clients do business better in the region and delivers a clear call to action.

“SKED really enjoyed working with the P&P team. Their process makes an organization think seriously about what their work means. It’s more than an image. P&P helped us create something that represents the value we bring to the region and the values we represent.”

Brett traver
executive director, SKED

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Are you ready to share your story, make it matter and connect with your folks in a big way? Great!
We can’t wait to talk.