Strengtening Sisterhood
The Girl Scouts Rebrand
Who Is COLLINS?
COLLINS is a creative strategy and branding agency specializing in transforming companies through imaginative and innovative solutions. For 15 years, COLLINS has been at the forefront of guiding businesses through pivotal changes, crafting innovative futures rather than merely optimizing the present. COLLINS has led numerous transformations across various industries, earning 198 awards from prestigious organizations like Fast Company, D&AD, Forbes, and others. Their focus is on creating new futures for their clients by combining creativity with commercial logic. This approach helps companies unlock new business value, turn niche markets into major opportunities, and reimagine legacy brands into trailblazers.
COLLINS offers nine tailored programs designed to address different types of transformations. These include repositioning a company’s category, brand equities to anticipate market shifts, evolving core offerings to capture large, defensible capital pools, and blending two or more brands into one, creating new equities and advantages. They also guide startups or business divisions through sustainable growth, develop new brands or business units for strategic market opportunities, and revitalize underperforming companies to enhance competitiveness and valuation. Additionally, COLLINS helps companies grow rapidly into new categories or markets, update key brand elements for increased relevance and redefine brand relationships to clarify positioning and innovation strategies.
Their approach is structured around five key questions that guide every transformation. How should we run our transformation? What new values can we create? How does it impact our brand? How do we get our company to embrace it? And how do we roll it out to the world? These questions focus on strategic planning to write the transformative playbook, unlocking new economic value, building competitive brand equities, embedding change within company culture, and creating touchpoints that drive consumer engagement.
Notable clients like Sweetgreen, Dropbox, and Caleres have praised COLLINS for enabling them to envision new futures, execute transformational pivots, and achieve significant growth. COLLINS is dedicated to driving large-scale transformations by leveraging imagination and strategic thinking, helping companies innovate and lead in their industries.
The new brand identity developed by COLLINS emphasizes Girl Scouts’ role as a champion of girls’ ambitions. This identity is brought to life through bold geometric forms derived from traditional badges, offering a unifying visual language. COLLINS collaborated with Positype to create a custom typeface that compliments the brand’s new voice—one that directly engages with girls, acknowledges their potential, and empowers them. The rebrand also extends to apparel and merchandise, updating archived styles with a modern twist to enhance the brand’s appeal.
COLLINS’ approach to the Girl Scouts rebrand is a testament to their commitment to transformation and innovation. They not only refined the visual identity but also ensured that it resonated with the movement’s rich history while looking forward. By incorporating contributions from diverse women artists and designers, they added a layer of vibrancy and relevance to the brand, reflecting the dynamic nature of the Girl Scouts’ mission. This comprehensive rebrand reasserts the movement’s foundational values while positioning it as a forward-thinking force in empowering young women.
The first step in the rebranding process was to conduct a thorough brand audit. This involved analyzing the organization’s existing brand assets, including its logo, colors, messaging, and overall visual identity. The audit also looked at how the brand was perceived by both internal and external audiences. Understanding these perceptions was crucial in identifying areas where the brand could be strengthened and modernized.
Next, Girl Scouts partnered with COLLINS to develop a new visual identity. This collaboration was central to the rebranding effort, as it allowed for the creation of a brand that was not only visually appealing but also deeply connected to the organization’s mission and values. The design team worked closely with Girl Scouts to ensure that the new brand elements, including the logo, typography, and color palette, were reflective of the organization’s commitment to inclusivity, empowerment, and leadership.
The iconic trefoil logo, a symbol that has been synonymous with the Girl Scouts for decades, underwent a subtle yet impactful redesign. The updated logo retained the familiar shape but was modernized with cleaner lines and a more contemporary feel. The refreshed color palette introduced vibrant shades of green, blue, and purple, symbolizing growth, diversity, and creativity. The new typography was chosen to convey a sense of strength and approachability,
striking a balance between tradition and innovation.
The rebranding of Girl Scouts was met with widespread acclaim, both within the organization and beyond. The new brand identity successfully communicated the organization’s relevance in the 21st century while maintaining a strong connection to its heritage. The updated visuals, messaging, and overall brand strategy resonated with current members and helped attract a new generation of girls eager to join the organization.
One of the key indicators of the rebranding’s success was the positive response from the Girl Scouts’ diverse membership base. The new brand identity was seen as more inclusive, reflecting the experiences and aspirations of girls from all walks of life. This inclusivity was further reinforced by the organization’s commitment to expanding its programming to cover a broader range of interests, from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to outdoor adventures and entrepreneurship.
The rebranding also positioned Girl Scouts as a leader in the youth development space, particularly in promoting gender equality and empowering girls to become future leaders. The organization’s renewed focus on leadership development, coupled with its modernized brand identity, helped solidify its reputation as a vital and dynamic force in the lives of millions of girls across the country.
In addition to its impact on membership, the rebranding initiative also garnered positive attention from the media and the public. Girl Scouts was praised for their forward-thinking approach and their ability to adapt to the changing needs of their members while staying true to their core mission. The rebrand was seen as a successful example of how a legacy organization can evolve and thrive in a modern context.
“The future is her”