Kids Help Phones Launches Colourful Brand Redesign

Kids Help Phone (KHP) has provided free, 24/7 e-mental health support for youth in Canada since 1989. Since the first call was taken, the challenges young people face have grown more complex. Youth need access to the supports that are most relevant to them more than ever before. Reflecting their world, and all the feelings that they might have, was critically important to convey because KHP helps young people through problems big, small and everything in between.

The help KHP provides comes in all sizes. And now, so does their brand identity.

McCann Canada has created a new look based on their truth. Help in all Sizes is a promise from Kids Help Phone to youth across the country – with a new brand ID system that is flexible, colourful and as diverse as the young people KHP supports today.

This is a complete rebrand for the organisation which will affect every communication touchpoint moving forward, including but not limited to: OOH, Digital, Social, PR, Stationery, Merchandise (swag), Downloadable Assets, their website and more.

The launch of the new brand identity and logo is meant to set the tone for what’s to come with Kids Help Phone’s new ambitions, goals and campaigns. As such, it is timed to launch right before our Youth campaign, that will announce our new brand platform to our Youth audience (who is the service user target audience).

The new brand identity is built around the idea of ‘Help in all sizes’. With a modular logo and over 14 colours, Kids Help Phone has broken away from the usual and often limited brand colour palettes and single logo size. The new logo stretches and shrinks to fit any space (or problem). It represents the variety of issues Kids Help Phone’s services cover – there is no issue too big or small. It’s a logo as diverse as the young people we serve.

Katherine Hay ICD.D, president and CEO at Kids Help Phone, “For over 33 years we’ve innovated to create programs and services for all young people, no matter where in Canada they may be reaching out from or how they identify.  The youth in Canada are diverse and forward, they quest for their mental health and wellbeing with both a collective and individual mindset.  Young people need to see themselves in the Kids Help Phone brand  – now more than ever.  Feelings aren’t just one colour, and the ages, stages and experiences of the young people we serve aren’t either. Kids Help Phone is here for all youth. And we’re excited to be growing into a new look that better represents that and where youth can see themselves.”

“Kids Help Phone empowers young people to thrive in their world. The new brand identity celebrates the hope that exists in even the darkest moments and feelings we all experience. We love the range of colours and flexibility of the new design system, which reflects young people and their many different types of feelings.”

“There is no problem too big or small that young people can reach out to us about. The new brand identity reflects that simple fact in a fresh, bold and inclusive way.”

Josh Stein, CCO at McCann Worldgroup Canada, “Kids Help Phone is in a category of one. The driving force behind this rebrand was for it to fit in alongside other iconic brands that manage to break through into the lives of today’s youth.

The range of supports that Kids Help Phone provides to today’s youth is staggering, and inspiring. It led us to the idea of ‘help in all sizes’ and a brand system that included a lot of flexibility in colour, shape and energy so the brand could remain recognizable regardless of the topics and conversations they have to cover.

As Kids Help Phone evolves, so does the culture of youth today and we’re feeling that we have a visual identity that has caught up and can evolve along with it.”