Re-branding poverty: distraction, sugar-coating, or...?

Image by violet sugar via FlickrYesterday, Portland opened the gates of the brand-new Bud Clark Commons, a multipurpose building that occupies a half-block area between the main post office and the Greyhound station that now houses a 150-unit apartment complex, "Doreen's Place" men's shelter, and the new Transition Projects (TPI) day resource access and homeless control facility.  The idea came during the Tom Potter era when the Multnomah County circuit court ruled that the sit-lie ordinance would be unconstitutional, and simultaneously the city was under fire from the local business community for its seeming molly-coddling of the vagrants who were taking up too much sidewalk spaces and bothering shoppers, convention delegates, and tourists.  For the past several years, the Julia West House, a small building owned by First Presbyterian Church in West End district, served as an interim day access center until the completion of the Bud Clark Commons.

Along with the opening of the Bud Clark Commons, inevitably quite a bit of graphic design and branding work (and most likely more than a few focus group sessions) into branding both Bud Clark and the Housing Authority of Portland, the manager of the apartments section.

The Bud Clark Commons logo is essentially a sampling of the eight shades of green used throughout the building.  As you see, the scheme of the building, both exterior and interior, features wood panels accented with green window panes, green furniture, and green fixtures.  The visual effect is to evoke the imagery of a tree, with its diverse shades of green, true to Portland's proximity to forests and the city's commitment and reputation as a "green city." (The building, needless to say, is LEED Platinum certified!)

Using this as an opportunity, the Housing Authority of Portland also unveiled its new corporate identity.  Now HAP is known as Home Forward.  The press release proclaims: "the vivid blue, green and featuring a 'flourishing home' symbol that combines the two colors, the new identity tells the current and future residents... that Home Forward is a progressive, positive enterprise committed to a better tomorrow."  The design was made by Bill Chiaravalle's (author of Branding for Dummies) Brand Navigation (an Oregon company based in Bend).

These are great designs, and as a graphic designer, I commend their efforts.  I hope the new branding would not only better communicate its missions and visions, but also make the services more accessible and approachable.  I believe also that these new, sleek designs will help destigmatize the services and their clients alike.

However, as a social justice advocate, I also find at another level these rebranding campaigns somewhat troubling.  The less desirable side-effect of this is that it will sugar-coat poverty and the systemic injustice that dehumanize the poor.  Just like silly euphemisms often used in relation to the same population (for instance, many shelters call their clients "guests" instead of just bums, as though they are a five-star hotel; yet it is the underlying attitudes, reinforcement of social boundaries, paternalism and radical separations, and dehumanization of the poor by the privileged population that are left unchallenged), it plays down the severity of the life under poverty and helps those with privilege to not feel too guilty for perpetuating the evil.  In this sense, the nice and pretty buildings distract the wider community from the fundamental problems and sterilizes the reality of poverty behind the architectural and branding aesthetics.