Topics covered
The value of branding your Hearken project
Don't let branding slow you down
Generating series names
Series logo examples
Illustrating the Hearken process
Bonus: video branding
The value of branding your Hearken project
If you’re planning to use Hearken for a standalone series or special project, you may want to come up with a catchy name and design a logo to accompany your form embed and any other Hearken-related assets. This can make it easier for audiences to recognize your series and it can help you draw a connecting narrative thread through all the various aspects of the Hearken process, from collecting responses, to voting, to the story itself.
Note: there's no requirement to make a special name or logo for reporting done with Hearken and you can certainly use Hearken outside of a branded series context!
Don't let branding slow you down
For the newsrooms doing special series and projects with Hearken, we love seeing the fun names, logos, and graphics that our partners come up with. But we also know from experience that settling on a name and design can actually become an unnecessary bottleneck that keeps newsrooms from getting the Hearken process off the ground. But here’s the thing, audience engagement doesn’t require branding!
So remember: you don’t have to have your logos or graphics designed before you launch your Hearken project. You can always soft launch of the project without branding. Just embed a form embed and start collecting your responses! If you've thought of a name but haven't yet designed a logo, you can always create a text-only header for your embed until your snazzy designs are finished. But you don't even need to come up with a name before you start collecting responses. Just start! You can unveil your logos and graphics when you’re ready to make your Hearken launch ~official~.
If and when you do decide that you want to make special logos or graphics, peruse this graphics inspiration board, below, for inspiration. Then read our help article on configuring your form embed's header.
Generating a series name
Many of our partner newsrooms follow the naming formula of "curious" + place name: CuriousCT, curiousKC, Curious Nashville, etc. This is a great formula but it's certainly not the only option! In our experience, a great series name incorporates at least one of these two things:
A reference to the questions-based model (e.g., words like curiosity, wonder, question, ask, etc)
Words or phrases that speak to a pride of place (e.g., regional slang, slogans, or nicknames for a particular area)
For example, our partners at Milwaukee's WUWM, named their series "Bubbler Talk." Bubbler is Wisconsin slang for water fountain. The name implies that this series has the kind of stories you'll talk about around the water cooler. And because "bubbler" is a word that's pretty much unique to Wisconsites, the name inspires a real sense of hometown pride.
Like with any new project, do your research before finalizing a series name idea. Before you settle on a series name, run through these steps (and any others as advised by your legal team) to help make sure it won’t cause you any headaches later on:
Google it. Does another newsroom have something with the same name or a similar-enough name that it might confuse audience members? Does something else exist with this name (a product, an organization, an ad campaign, etc.) that you don’t want to compete with?
Say it out loud. Write out the acronym. Write it out without spaces. Do any accidental words form? If you do podcasts or audio, is it confusing to the ear and would it be hard to Google? Creative spelling can be fine for print and digital, but hard to hear.
Run it by your legal team. They can help you make sure it’s not already trademarked or likely to get you in any legal hot water. Also, depending on your organization, your legal team may desire to trademark the name you’ve come up with, so it’s good to get them in the conversation early. (For example, KQED trademarked “Bay Curious.“)
Test it out with a few friends, family members, or audience members. Do they understand it? Does it evoke the feeling you’re looking for?
If you’re creating a series logo for it as well, run it by your legal team, too, in case it conflicts with any similar marks.
Series logos
Our members use the following logos as banner images for their homepage, or as the header image of their embeds, or both! Click on a logo to see how it looks on the newsroom's website.
Illustrating the Hearken process
Some of our newsrooms include an illustration of the Hearken process in the branding itself. This is great way to catch readers' eyes and succinctly explain how the series works, why you want their questions and what happens after responses are submitted. These kinds of graphics can also be very useful to use as social media share tiles.
If you don't have a staff designer, or the ability to hire someone to design a custom logo, here are some of our favorite tools that can help you build your own:
Canva: This site has a robust collection of templates and images for you to use as you design your logo. There are low-cost subscription options and a free version you can access.
The Noun Project: This collection of more than 2 million icons has something for nearly anything you could search for, and in several different style families. Some icons are free to use with attribution, others require payment, either on a per-icon use or with an annual subscription.
For inspiration, here are some outstanding designs from our partners:
KQED's Bay Curious:
WVPB's Wild, Wondering West Virginia:
Denverite:
(Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
WAMU's What's With Washington?
Note: This is actually an interactive graphic on the What's With Washington series page. Each icon is anchor linked to a lower section on the page. So, for example, if you click on the question icon, you will be transported down to the form embed. If you click on the magnifying glass, you will be able to read all of the stories that WAMU has reported thus far to answer audience questions. We love this idea because the graphic doesn't just illustrate the Hearken process; it shepherds readers through the steps, and it organizes all the points of audience engagement on a single webpage.
Bonus: video branding
Some of our member newsrooms have used video as a way to promote and explain the Hearken process. We think this is a great idea, but it's just a fun accessory, not a necessary item! And, if you do decide you want to create some kind of video, don't let it become another bottleneck in the Hearken process. Below are two fun videos from our member newsrooms.