The Kōlea Podcast

PLATE 06Brand Identity

badge lockup →

The Kōlea Podcast

brand identity — 2025

BRAND COMPLETE

The Kōlea Podcast is a non-profit show rooted in Hawaiʻi. It needed an identity that could stand on its own as cover art and carry a steady, recognizable presence across Instagram — a logo, a palette, and a small kit of social templates the team could post without a designer in the loop.

The name does the heavy lifting. The kōlea — the Pacific golden plover — migrates thousands of miles nonstop across open ocean between Alaska and Hawaiʻi every year. That journey, and the idea of a broadcast reaching out across distance, became the whole mark.

Deep Kōlea Navy grounds everything — the open ocean and the night sky the bird crosses. Sun Gold is the bird itself and the warmth of arrival; deeper gold and cream round out the range for text, backgrounds, and contrast. The same five colors run flat for everyday posts and as polished navy-and-gold marble for cover art and title cards.

A golden bird in flight, against radiating rings. The rings read two ways at once — the broadcast going out, and the long arc of the migration. Gold marks the bird; navy grounds it. The wordmark is set in Poppins with KŌLEA as the anchor, the macron kept exact so the Hawaiian spelling stays right.

Two finishes from one palette. A flat lockup is the everyday default — clean on web, social, and partner placements. A marble treatment in the same navy and gold is the hero style, saved for cover art, title cards, and the video intro where the depth and sheen earn their place.

series cover — instagram reel

The identity earns its keep on Instagram. The series cover puts the hosts front and center — black-and-white cutouts against the brand's navy-and-gold stripes, with the bird overhead and a TALK STORY tag in the local idiom. It's built at story size so it reads the second it lands in a feed.

Full logo kit in PNG and SVG — flat and marble, stacked, horizontal, badge, and standalone bird, on navy / cream / white / transparent. Series cover and social artwork, a short animated intro, and the brand book with palette, type, and usage. Built so a small non-profit team can keep posting on-brand without redrawing anything.

CAPTURED AT HANDOFF — all visuals show this project as delivered to the client. Live sites and platforms may differ from what's shown here, since clients can edit their own properties over time.