HIV Legal Network Renaming and Rebranding

As the organization approached its 30th year in operation, The HIV Legal Network was looking for guidance and a strategy for re-naming and re-branding. Through a collaborative naming process, we landed on HIV Legal Network (HLN) as a new name that would be quickly recognizable and connected to the long history of challenging injustice and defending human rights for all, would stay true to the core of the organization, and would allow HLN to seamlessly continue their advocacy, with room to grow. Moving forward with this name, our branding goals were to:

• mobilize the public and engage the public in this work; 
• invite people into this work and create entry points; and  
• frame the HIV Legal Network as a multi-faceted organization, working on both community and international levels to ensure that human rights are at the centre of any response to HIV, and that the voices of people living with and affect by HIV and listened to and amplified. 

Leading with impact

This creative framework centres the way that HIV Legal Network is a bridge between the lived experiences of people affected by HIV, and legal expertise that leads to policy change. The organization’s methods and tactics are consistent, unwavering and rooted in a strong, principled vision, but the application is case-by-case: both innovative and creative. 

This bridging is an active process; HIV Legal Network is responsive to community, developing policy and interventions that are informed by the grassroots. It power is found in how it feeds back, generates deep impact as it challenges wrongs and advances rights, and ultimately transforms the lives of people living with and affected by HIV. 

From this concept we developed a logo to capture this resounding and vision-based message: Advocacy for the rights and dignity of people affected by HIV is simultaneously political and structural, and personal and community-driven. The HIV Legal Network takes a firm stance at the intersections, bringing these spheres together, and building toward a clearly articulated future. 

In the form of hands clasped in solidarity, HLN’s new logo captures the energy of activism, the action of collaboration and networking, and connects this spirit to a long history of advocacy for the rights and dignity of people affected by HIV. This energy is responsive to community—hands together—and the work is powerful and feeds back—the visual connection and uplift of the ribbon. 

We have a true sense here of HLN’s firm stance as a leader at the intersections, bridging and building toward a clearly articulated future. This logo is human-centred, approachable and inviting, bold, fresh, and hopeful.