DevResults: Project Management for Effective Development

DevResults

DevResults is a management tool for international development agencies, humanitarian assistance organizations, charitable foundations, and others that work to improve the quality of life in developing countries. Examples: USAID, World Bank, CARE, Oxfam, Gates Foundation, Red Cross, UNDP.

These organizations are moving away from large, expensive projects, instead preferring to fund many small initiatives. For example, rather than hiring one contractor to build many water systems, a donor might use the same money to create a fund that will generate hundreds of small grants to community associations to build water systems for themselves.

While this is more effective, it’s more complex to manage.

DevResults is a suite of simple web-based management tools that makes it easy for international development projects to track budgets, calendars, and performance indicators for any number of activities. Task lists help teams stay on the same page and track approvals. Document and photo libraries provide centralized storage for important files. Interactive maps show where projects are working. Readable graphs and charts allow managers both in the field and in donor countries to monitor and evaluate the results of projects in real time.

The software will be offered as a web-based service at monthly rates, like BaseCamp, or Salesforce.com.

International development professionals. The following fictional personas are representative:

- Charlotte, age 54, is a veteran grant manager. She works for the World Bank in Washington, DC. She is from Toulouse, France and studied in London. She speaks six languages and has lived in fifteen countries. She is administering a new $17.2-million grant fund that will finance pilot projects to promote the use of computers in education in Latin America.

- Alex, age 35, is a rising star at Health Alternatives International (HAI), a Vermont-based nonprofit. He went to Brown University and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin. He lives with his girlfriend of 5 years and brews beer as a hobby. He speaks French and Yoruba, and has recently returned from a two-year term as Chief of Party for HAI in Kinshasa, Congo. He is now responsible for administering a $10-million malaria prevention fund for hundreds of small community initiatives in Indonesia.

- Lidia, age 47, is the team leader for the Basic Human Services team at the USAID mission in Bolivia. She is Peruvian, married to a Brazilian, and has four young children. She speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently. She is a civil engineer and has worked for USAID most of her professional life. She is managing a rural potable water project that is funding 500 new water systems in small towns and villages throughout the country.

IMPORTANT CHANGE - 2 Apr 2010

I'd like to focus this contest on the logo itself - the symbol, as opposed to the word mark. Once we have a good brand, we can work on the type treatment separately. So to simplify things for everyone, in all subsequent submissions, please:

- Use Officina Serif or a similar slab serif font.
- Use all lower case (devresults) with "dev" and "results" in different colors from the palette.
- Leave off the tagline ("Project Management for Effective Development").

I hope that by taking the type treatment out of contention you'll be able to focus your efforts on coming up with a symbol that represents this product's capabilities in a powerful way.

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A simple, strong logo, plus the word DevResults. (Alternative capitalization OK, e.g. devRESULTS or devResults).

TAGLINE:

“Project Management for Effective Development”

USAGE:

Primary use is online. We'll need RGB vector artwork (AI, EPS). Consider these usage scenarios, in decreasing order of importance:

- Masthead of primary website (between 200px and 500px across)
- Smaller (100px) grayed-out version for “Managed with DevResults” footer of project websites
- Printed brochure
- Business cards
- Gifts such as polo shirts (monochromatic version)

COLORS:

- Orange (#D8820F)
- Blue (#2625AB)
- Khaki (#D6CDC1)
- Black (#000000)

If necessary, tints and shades of these colors can be used in limited amounts.

THEMES:

The logo should reflect, in decreasing order of importance:
- Accountability, transparency
- Pragmatic, practical, professional
- Simple, easy, fast, interactive, online
- Cutting edge, web 2.0, sleek, high end
- International, global
- Clarity, control, competence
- Action, effectiveness
- Charts, numbers, money, statistics
- Uplift, initiative, autonomy, self-reliance

We want:

- Simple, clear, bold
- Solid colors
- Strong, professional typefaces (Minion, Franklin Gothic)

We don’t want:

- “Primitive”, “tribal”, “third-world”
- Stereotypical “third-world” typefaces (Papyrus, Lithos)
- Rustic/distressed effects or textures

Mockup screenshots attached.