The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital sphere, working to promote freedom and protect rights across issues like free speech, net neutrality and data privacy. Pentagram has designed a new identity for the EFF that is bold, simple and versatile, equally effective in uses ranging from legal services to activist campaigns.
The pro bono project grew out of the work EFF did helping one of Pentagram’s favorite design blogs, Kate Wagner’s McMansion Hell, a irreverent critique of contemporary residential architecture. EFF defended Wagner when an online real estate company threatened a potential lawsuit for using photos from its site. EFF argued fair use, and the real estate company backed down. To express its appreciation, Pentagram volunteered to design a new logo for the group.
The organization is already widely known as the EFF, and the logo streamlines the identity into a strong, flexible monogram. An alternate lockup fits the group’s lengthy full name in a screen-like space within the logo that can also be used to highlight other text and images. Built of letters of the same height and width, the modular logo can be stacked and reconfigured in multiple ways. League Gothic, an open-source DIN font, is the primary typeface for the identity.
