American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD)

Client: American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), Phoenix, AZ – AIFDemocracy.org

Summary: I redesigned the logo and all branding for this Muslim reform and freedom-advocacy nonprofit, then was engaged to act as the founder’s creative consultant for five years

Overview

The American-Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a Phoenix, AZ-based think tank and activist group that articulates the voice of freedom-loving American Muslims, and opposes Islamism (Muslim supremacism) in all its forms, on a philosophical, theological and ideological basis. Learn more here.

The AIFD’s founder and president, Zuhdi Jasser, MD, is a devout Muslim who served as a Lt. Commander in the US Navy, was physician to Congress and the Supreme Court, and has appeared in numerous national and foreign news media, discussing national security matters. See some of Dr. Jasser’s TV and podcast interviews, and his podcast series, “Reform This!,” here.

I acted as Dr. Jasser’s creative consultant for five years, providing a wide variety of branding, graphic design, writing and strategic advisory services, for both the AIFD, as well as several additional organizations he created, including the Muslim Reform Movement.

My first task was to redesign the AIFD’s logo and branding, which I told Dr. Jasser were hindering his cause. Here is what his logo looked like at the time:

And after:

Dr. Jasser was so delighted with the logo design I created, and the care I brought to understanding the AIFD’s mission and objectives, that he engaged me in various other aspects of its work, and raves about my performance. An excerpt from his full testimonial, here:

“Jon has provided a vast array of services and input which have been essential to the success of the AIFD, and our efforts to take it to ‘the next level.’ His expert contributions to the AIFD grew not only from just our media, but into his development of a powerful assessment of our organization’s intellectual positioning in the ‘marketplace of ideas,’ and an invaluable, graphical ‘force-field analysis,’ which Jon recommended, and created for us. He was clearly not only working on our project as a job, but as an individual who loves what he does, and loves the ideas of liberty.”

(1) The logo-banner the AIFD was using

(2) Some of the reasons why this was the most complex logo redesign I ever approached

(3) The final logo design

(4) Additional services I provided to Dr. Jasser and the AIFD

(5) Dr. Jasser’s testimonial for me

(6) Learn more about Dr. Jasser and the AIFD

(1) The logo-banner the AIFD was using

I discovered Dr. Jasser in 2005, via a series of radio interviews and editorials he wrote, and was so impressed I wanted to learn more, so I went to his website. The written content of the site was quite good, but the design was not. The first thing that struck me was the banner/logo:

The logo/banner suffers from two multiple problems: (1) There is no singular focal point, which causes the eye to move back and forth, and (2) The design is amateurish.

The rest of the front page I found very congested, and I suspected new visitors would find so much content all hitting them at once to be intimidating. Here is what it looked like it 2006:

The AIFD listened to the reasons why I felt its logo needed to be completely redesigned, as a first step to doing a more complete image makeover, and it commissioned me to execute this project.

(2) Some of the reasons why this was the most complex logo redesign I ever approached

I sensed at the onset that this was going to be the single most challenging logo redesign project I’d ever approached, chiefly because:

(1) I am not Muslim.

(2) Roughly 98% of my ancestors were murdered because they were Jews, by either Nazis or communists. My mother, Rose Cramer, was one of the last Jewish children the Nazis allowed to leave occupied Vienna (exit visa here) — yet here I was, offering my services to an organization whose faith had been (and continues to be) used to attack so many innocents, including Jews.

(3) 9/11 was one of the most traumatic events of my life — and it was perpetrated by Muslims, in the name of Islam.

(4) Dr. Jasser and his small team were single-handedly working to become the “tip-of-the-spear” in articulating a different vision of Islam, and mechanisms by which to oppose and discredit those who use it to peddle hate and incitement. What qualifications, aside from being a talented graphic designer, did I bring to this grand quest?

Dr. Jasser describes the complexity of the battle freedom-loving people must engage in to protect themselves and their culture

To help understand the battle Dr. Jasser face, here is one of his many appearances, from 2019, responded to the terrorist attack on the London Bridge, by jihadists. As he says, until and unless Muslims themselves stand up to the extremists within their own faith, the West will be playing “whack-a-mole” to prevent jihadist terrorist attacks until the end of time.

What enabled me to overcome these obstacles were my beliefs that:

Dr. Jasser was the most courageous man I’d ever had the privilege of getting to know

His and the AIFD’s perspectives were urgently needed within the Muslim community — and heard by mainstream America

To more effectively prevent another 9/11, America must understand the driving ideology that produced it, and he was one of the two most intelligent, patient and persuasive messengers I was aware of at the time (the other being Ayaan Hirsi Ali)

The target audiences

I put my apprehensions aside, and inserted myself into the role of a student — to learn as much & as fast as possible about the AIFD’s mission objectives, the adversaries they faced, and the target audiences they were trying to reach:

American Muslims

Everyday Americans

Muslims around the world

U.S. and international news media, governmental agencies and think tanks

Given the vastly different prisms through which these disparate groups would view the new logo, the AIFD and I had extensive discussion to conceiving of a design that would be a physical expression of the its core principles, while remaining sensitive to all audiences, and the degree to which they possessed accurate knowledge and perceptions about the matters at hand.

The design approach I recommended

I recommended to the AIFD that our redesign approach should seamlessly fuse three elements:

A strong graphic identity of the AIFD letters

Freedom-oriented supporting imagery

The Muslim crescent integrated into the overall graphic, but with careful subtlety — not to compete with, or overpower it

Two months of work were required to arrive at the final design, and shortened “tag line.”

(3) The final logo design

Once we identified the general components we wanted the logo to consist of, I set to work, designed the basic structure, and custom-crafted it from scratch.

The AIFD and I explored many design possibilities, over a period of approximately eight weeks. Ultimately, we arrived at the idea of developing a stylized adaptation of the letters that comprise its name, into which (a) an American flag, and (b) the Islamic crescent moon would be inserted.

The following chronicles my step-by-step development of the new AIFD logo.

(1) After exploring many design approaches with the AIFD, the following submission by me was judged to be best, as a base standard from which to develop the full graphic identity:

(2) I was unable to locate high-quality vector art of the American flag that would “work” for insertion into the above master art outline, in my and the AIFD’s opinion. Most source graphics I obtained had a variety of “imperfections,” including (a) stars and stripes that were not “waving” properly, and (b) stripes that, when positioned, would leave only “slivers” in the letters, or were not pointing in a consistently upward position (I wanted all critical lines to be pointing upward, indicating ascent).

Given these challenges, I opted to produce hand-sculpted, original art, that would meet my criteria for “perfection.”

(3) I created a custom blue field with stars, and then molded it to exactly follow the “wave” of the flag. Note that the lower-right star is inserted in the interior of the crescent, as it is in the Islamic “logo” — a subtle yet important integrating design criteria:

(4) The AIFD and I then spent considerable effort to select a positive, immediately-distinguishable, accenting combination of typefaces for the name, and new, abbreviated tag line. The following is the result:

(5) For cases in which the logo should appear atop a dark background, I adapted the logo standard to the following:

(4) Additional services I provided to Dr. Jasser and the AIFD

Due to my confidentiality agreement, I am not at liberty to publicly describe the specifics of much of the additional work I performed for the AIFD over the next five years. In general, however, these services consisted of strategic counsel, message-crafting and research, for a variety of mission-critical applications, to help the AIFD wage the ideological war in which it was and remains engaged, with greater polish, precision and efficacy.

I also provided advisory services on redesigning the AIFD’s website. Here is what the site looked like at the time:

And here is the redesign approach I developed:

Below, however, is the testimonial letter that Dr. Jasser wrote for me, describing some of these specifics, and the overall value I brought to him and the AIFD.

It was one of the greatest honors of my career to have worked with him and the AIFD to advance its mission, in such a hostile and challenging environment. One ex

(5) Dr. Jasser’s testimonial for me

See Dr. Jasser’s full testimonial here:

“Jon has provided a vast array of services and input which have been essential to the success of the AIFD, and our efforts to take it to ‘the next level.’ What was profoundly unique about Jon’s contributions to the AIFD is that they were not just limited to the task we initially contracted him for, logo production and a graphics makeover.

“(H)e also has an uncanny grasp of the challenges facing those wishing to advocate liberty in the public square, which are even more significant and complex, given the AIFD’s mission to do so in an environment that encompasses religion, law, philosophy and national security. We found his input on our (existing) website, logo, and the body of other visual and written media we have developed and employ, to be uniquely on-point, and well thought-out.

“His expert contributions to the AIFD grew not only from just our media, but into his development of a powerful assessment of our organization’s intellectual positioning in the ‘marketplace of ideas,’ and an invaluable, graphical ‘force-field analysis,’ which Jon recommended, and created for us. These materials were all indispensable during our recent board of directors’ retreat, and are now part of our foundational growth plan, towards our mission of being a significant organization on the American intellectual landscape. This would not have been possible without Jon’s contributions and expertise.

“Jon’s combination of marketing, graphic design, writing, editing and research abilities and knowledge, along with his deep understanding of the ideas of liberty and security, upon which the AIFD is focused, made his contributions not only superb, but unique. He was clearly not only working on our project as a job, but as an individual who loves what he does, and loves the ideas of liberty.”

– M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., Founder & President, American Islamic Forum for Democracy