“Advancement” has been Advancement Project’s guiding principle since 1999, when its founders, formerly of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, used the “best word” in the NAACP to name their new organization.

The organization would be stridently progressive and focused on grassroots organizing, setting it apart from its peer national legal non-profits. The word “project” was chosen to reflect the founders’ desire to be ever-changing and evolving.

In 2022, an organizational restructuring and an increasingly divisive political climate pushed Advancement Project to rebrand.

Advancement Project is a Black-centered racial justice organization that builds power and capacity through litigation, strategic communications, and campaigning.

The organization centers grassroots action, providing resources from a national level to organizers throughout the country and describing their approach as movement-lawyering.

Through movement-lawyering, weaving different local movements together and building new narratives around social justice, the Advancement Project is creating a world where people of color are free, safe, self-governing, and powerful.

It is crucial that their brand amplify and even prioritize the work of grassroots organizers.

Arrows boost us up and move us forward. They scream. They shout. They vibrate. They celebrate. And, like Advancement Project, they amplify. 

Advancement Project is a mission-led organization, not a design-led organization. Using the same typeface for the logo and headlines is just efficient and effective.

A bold, compressed typeface is both modern and evocative of past movements. It urgently commands attention and inspires action.

The system’s centerpiece is the Radical Burst, a direct representation of Advancement Project’s multitude of projects with the common goal of freedom for people of color.

The Radical Burst’s multiple colorways allow it to be applied to a full spectrum of content, from the joyful to the somber.

By centering direct action in their strategy and supporting the movement to abolish police and prisons, Advancement Project embraces the need for sweeping change and does so unapologetically. 

Despite the legal and political complexities that they face as an organization, the core goal of freedom for all is clear. And in pursuing freedom, Advancement Project is steadfast.