Some projects feel like work. Others feel like a privilege. When WFDD Public Radio asked us to design the identity for their 80th anniversary, it was firmly in the second category.
For eight decades, WFDD has been a steady voice in the Piedmont Triad — the morning companion on the commute down Reynolda Road, the trusted source during hurricanes and elections, the soundtrack to a thousand kitchen tables across the Carolinas. Marking eighty years on air is no small thing, and the mark itself needed to carry that weight without feeling heavy.
Here’s how we approached it.
The Brief
WFDD came to us with a clear, refreshingly grounded ask: design an 80th anniversary logo, delivered as ready-to-use files for everything from the website and digital ads to merch, swag, and print.
The creative guardrails:
- Use the existing WFDD brand color palette.
- Stay in the spirit of the station’s successful “Stay Curious” campaign.
- Keep it clean and simple.
- Make it resonate with the local audience.
That last point did most of the heavy lifting in our thinking. “Local” is a feeling, and for a station rooted in Winston-Salem and beamed across the Triad, it had to feel earned.
The Design Challenge
Anniversary marks are tricky. Lean too corporate, and you get a number floating in space — accurate, but forgettable. Lean too decorative and the mark can’t survive being shrunk down to a podcast tile or stitched onto a tote bag.
We also knew, from the start, that this logo would live everywhere: A station newsletter, a pledge-drive bumper sticker, a billboard on Business 40, and a digital ad on a phone screen at 6 a.m. One mark trying to do all of that almost always ends up doing none of it well.So we proposed something that’s become a quiet specialty of ours: two logos, one identity.
Two Marks for One Milestone
1. The Corporate Mark
Clean, structured, and built to play nicely with WFDD’s existing brand lockup. This is the version that lives on letterhead, sponsor decks, the website footer, digital ads, and any context where the station’s primary logo is already doing the talking. It’s restrained on purpose; a confident “80” that supports rather than competes.
2. The Stylized Graphic
The version with personality. Designed to feel at home on a t-shirt, a coffee mug, a tote at the farmers market, or a poster taped to the window of a coffee shop on Trade Street. It nods to the visual energy of the Stay Curious campaign with the same sense of warmth, openness, and a little bit of play, translated into something worth wearing.
Both marks share the same DNA: WFDD’s brand colors, a consistent take on the “80,” and a tone that sits comfortably next to the station’s existing identity. But each one has a job, and neither has to compromise to do the other’s.
Built for the Real World
Beyond the marks themselves, we delivered a complete kit of ready-to-use files so the WFDD team could move fast:
- Digital-optimized exports for the website and digital ad placements
- Print-ready files for merch, swag, and traditional print advertising
- Color and one-color variations for flexible application
- Clear-space and minimum-size guidance so the marks hold up wherever they show up
The goal was to hand off something the station could use on a Tuesday afternoon without calling us first.
A Local Note
The most rewarding part of this project wasn’t the kerning or the color tests. It was knowing where this mark was going to live: on a member’s car bumper in Greensboro, on a volunteer’s shirt during a pledge drive, on the WFDD homepage opened in thousands of browsers across the Triad every morning.
Eighty years is a long time to be a trusted voice in a community. We’re proud to have helped WFDD mark it, and to have done it in a way that keeps their listeners and their curiosity at the center.
Here’s to eighty more.
Have a milestone of your own coming up?
If your organization is approaching an anniversary, a rebrand, or a campaign that needs to feel both polished and personal, we’d love to talk. Get in touch with The Grove →