Elemental started as Elemental Excelerator, a climate tech accelerator. Over a decade it grew into an investment platform with a family of funds and a portfolio of 150+ companies, headquartered in Honolulu with offices in New York, Washington, DC, and San Francisco. The new name, Elemental Impact, reflects that growth, and the identity needed to catch up.
The branding had to move easily between philanthropy, policy, banking, venture capital, corporate partners, and community organizations, sometimes in the same week. My goal was a visual evolution that complements a maturing portfolio without losing what people already loved about Elemental. The new look is us, but more refined, with added gravitas, and always with our signature aloha, heart, and vibrancy.
Our name comes from the four elements: sun, wind, earth, and water, each paired with one primary color, plus pink as a fifth. The icons stack into a 2x2 lockup that works without the wordmark, and Elemental now holds a trademark on it, with applications filed for the horizontal and vertical versions. To expand the palette, I layered the primaries using blending modes and pulled new colors from the overlaps, then blended again to get the browns and navies. Because every secondary color came from the primaries, any 2–4 color combination reads as the same family.
Modern Era carries most of the type, with its large round lowercase and pronounced arcs that feel familiar without feeling generic. Modern Era Mono handles pre-headings, numerals, and wayfinding, a signal of technical rigor for a portfolio that includes geothermal drilling and robotic manufacturing. For imagery, I chose photos with dynamic composition and organic color, kept neighborhoods and cars modest instead of luxurious, and let Hawaii's landscapes carry Elemental's roots. The pops of color come from the photography itself: a sunset, a lava flow, an orange safety suit on a drill rig in Spring, Texas.
