Making history present

Back to the future

History is a key with which we unlock current states and future endeavors. When we look back and are able to measure the human experience through different perspectives, achievements and using various tools, we honor our accomplishment as a species, a society and a culture – and gear up towards further evolution. The Dan David prize is an award endowed by the Dan David Foundation, that celebrates exceptional individuals who contribute to social, academic and cultural understanding of our existence. However, as time revealed, even timeless achievements must be redefined in some way.

Why we prize

Funnily enough, the Humanities are underrated – under-recognized, under-budgeted. Even a fertile ground can’t grow anything without proper seeds and water. As produces in all aspects diminish, awards in Humanities might lose their prestige and initial reasoning. The Dan David foundation saw this challenge as an opportunity to revive its important prize. It was decided that from this point on, it’ll award individuals who deepen our knowledge about the human past and history, and effect current debates and perspective through it. This brought us together, as we embarked on a fascinating journey to reframe the award’s essence.

Winning back now

We did so using branding’s trustee pal, the WHY-HOW-WHAT chart – beginning and focusing on why, grounding the how and finding the what. So as the model suggests, let’s start with WHY: bringing back history to the table as a fresh perspective that captivates us and makes us better as society, or as we call it – TO MAKE HISTORY PRESENT. HOW does the Dan David Foundation do it?

We call it HISTORY&: a concept that uses history as a prism for greater context. It’s just about past events, rather the way they make us look at the present and the future. And finally, WHAT does the Dan David Foundation practically do? We framed it this way: WE ENABLE THE WORK & WE ENCOURAGE THE OUTREACH. To put it plainly, the foundation has the budget and the platform – thus enabling activity and spreading ideas and knowledge.

Looking at it

The next step was giving the Dan David prize new life with a fresh visual language. We started with the most important ingredient – the logo. Dan David’s new logo is based on an hourglass, as it captures well the three points in time: past, future and present as their meeting point. We expanded the top triangle and got a shape that refers to a trophy. We then set new brand colors, and went for two sets: one that has gravity, using black, white and grey;

and one that conveys lightness, softness, something mellow and earthy, reflective to all three time points. We’ve added icons based on the logo shape and a stamp that packs the elements together into one impressive imprint. The photography language focuses on people, individuals and groups, in inspiring and reflective frames. Combining all of these, we’ve helped Dan David Foundation recreate a brand that honors history not only as a proof of human development, but as the ground for further growth.