Illinois Music Education Association
Logo
The Illinois Music Education Association is an organization that connects music teachers throughout the state. Through advocacy and education, the ILMEA delivers professional development for music educators and amazing experiences for music students. With over 3,500 members, ILMEA is the largest fine arts education organization in Illinois. As they looked to grow and serve their members with new programs and conferences, we helped develop a new identity that branded the organization in a new positive light.
Logo
The final logo emphasizes three main elements and unifies them into one comprehensive package. By bringing together the shape of Illinois, a music staff, and the initials of the organization, we were able to create a mark that was completely own-able and identifiable.
“GD Squared brought ILMEA’s branding into the 21st century. They took the mission and vision of our organization and created a logo to reflect exactly who we are in a clear and recognizable way.”
Lori Evenhouse | Programs Manager | Illinois Music Education Association
A primary goal of the new logo was to highlight Illinois. Recently, the organization had changed its name to ILMEA from IMEA and did so to avoid confusion with other music education organizations from other states that begin with the letter “I.” After doing a lot of research and strategic analysis of other music logos, it became evident that almost all logos used clichéd symbolism in their identity (notes, treble clefs, and instruments). Our focus was to push beyond the standard solution in order to come up with something truly unique for this organization.
Adjudicated Events Logos
ILMEA hosts a series of adjudicated events for teachers and students each year. The organization approached us to help create a logo for these events, and we proposed not only doing a logo for the group as a whole, but also for the individual events as well. The logos create a cohesive series that each utilize the shape outline and staff as the main element and a unique color palette to help them stand apart.
Additional Logos
We also created logos for the ILMEA annual conference (which you can read more about here) and the ILMEA Elementary Series program which focuses on music education for younger students.
