The Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had an identity problem. Namely, that it didn’t have much of one at all. Out of 600 Utah households surveyed, only three percent could name DEQ as an environmental entity and even fewer knew what the department actually does, assuming it was a finger-wagging, government regulatory bureaucracy.

In honor of its 25th anniversary, DEQ approached Struck to create a new public face that brought it out of obscurity and positioned the department as an impassioned and helpful group of citizen advocates and credible environmental health experts.

The new brand we created shows off DEQ’s friendly and relatable nature with a more consumer-facing visual identity designed to represent the three elements of the environment that DEQ protects for the Utah citizenry: air, land and water.

We then created a new PSA campaign that positions the DEQ’s approachable professionalism as the antidote to public confusion—personified by quirky guy-next-door character named Phil. In order to make the Utah citizenry take notice and want to engage further with the DEQ, we aimed to make the humorous PSA videos feel as friendly and unexpected as the new brand. We also created a Twitter account for Phil, our misinformed environmental enthusiast. When citizens ask environmental questions to @UtahDEQ with #AskDEQnotPhil, they'll get two responses—one from DEQ and one from Phil. 

We Phil really good about this project.