Maybe you’ve seen the Houston Recovery Center double-heart logo for years and never thought of its origin? February seems like a great time to explore it while hearts are on our mind for the month of Valentine’s Day.
Executive Director Leonard Kincaid said one of the things they focused on in the early days of the agency was establishing a culture grounded in compassion, dignity, and respect.
“Treating people with compassion, dignity, and respect will transmit the message that people are in a safe place surrounded by people who care,” Kincaid said. “That’s the feeling the logo evokes for me – one of caring. It’s two hearts connecting – the collective heart of our staff connecting with the heart of the client. It’s the heart-to-heart connection that helps clients grow.”
Kincaid believes the logo has served the agency well. Our Partners in Recovery program is about forming a partnership between the staff delivering care and the client. Houston Recovery Center wanted that partnership to begin from the start when clients were admitted to the sobering center.
“We needed a logo that symbolized that partnership because we wanted it to be representative of the relationship that existed between our staff and the person receiving the care,” Kincaid relates.
Evolution of the Logo
Ashley Ochoa, Kincaid’s former executive assistant, remembers when Houston Recovery Center began that Kincaid was adamant that they have a logo that conveyed care. Management was hesitant to move forward with the heart logo at first, she says, because the other design they liked (an ellipsis shape) was so pretty.
“But Leonard knew it didn’t convey what we were about,” Ochoa relates. “It appealed to the eye but didn’t convey the message ‘heart-to-heart.’”
In 2016, The Black Sheep Agency, a local brand strategy and creative agency that partners with cause-driven brands, helped Houston Recovery Center update its brand with new colors, messaging, and modernized logo. The result is our current logo today.
As the Black Sheep strategy document summed up:
“When we boil down your beliefs, your passion and your overall mission – the reason you wake up in the morning, ready to tackle the day – it comes down to this:
Change begins at the heart. And boy, do you have heart!”