An integrated branding campaign to evolve the All Nations Hotline into the All Nations Network—spanning identity, messaging, PR, print, OOH, and visual systems
All Nations needed to raise awareness of the mental health hotline relaunch within the local community while simultaneously building the identity, systems, and infrastructure to support a nationwide, Native-led crisis and care network.
Working with Indigenous leadership in our Make/Care model of design, we created a flexible, community-driven identity system and an integrated campaign to support the launch—honoring the audiences we needed to reach in a genuine, fascinating, and empathic way.
Moving the All Nations Hotline to the All Nations Network was a multi-year, deeply nuanced effort. In 2020, Vu Gandin Le worked with Dr. Warrior and her team to launch the first crisis hotline run specifically for Native Americans, by Native Americans.
Guided by the principles of the Make/Care process, shaping the Network’s identity was never about telling people what to feel. It was about making space for a quieter truth: the steady comfort of knowing that someone, somewhere, is making something and thinking of you—even though you’ve never met.
Yes. One of the biggest challenges in mental health outreach is how we visualize trauma. The default is often to show someone visibly in distress—but there’s growing understanding that this can be alienating or even retraumatizing.
In this more nuanced approach, we didn’t tell people what to feel. Instead, we worked with the community to create paper by hand—embedding it with medicine, prayers, and plant matter. The result was a series of visuals that don’t depict pain, but presence. A quiet reminder that someone, somewhere, is thinking of you and fighting for you.
This imagery and narrative became the heart of the campaign—shaping both the outreach materials and the new mark and identity for the Network.
In addition to the ad campaign, there was a deliberate PR element. These pieces were created as a physical gesture—something that could be framed, signed, and sent to community leaders to gently make them and their networks aware of the launch. A way to acknowledge the moment, quietly but unmistakably.
A flexible mark to honor all members
Each Nation carries its own sacred symbols — a Lakota medicine wheel differs from those of Alaskan or Southeastern tribes. There is no single emblem that speaks for all, and forcing one would be both inaccurate and disrespectful.
We approached the identity as a system: a flexible mark that holds the Network together while allowing each Nation to adapt and incorporate their own visual language. The mark shown here serves as the primary identity for the umbrella organization.
The problem of the payer
This project has been paused due to federal funding freezes at Haskell Indian Nations University and other institutions that Dr. Warrior serves, reflecting broader cuts across mental health and crisis services nationwide.
As is too often the case in this field, those who need help most are not the ones controlling the funding — you can’t expect someone in crisis to enter their credit card. With expansion and additional resources on hold, the hotline remains fully active and continues to serve the community.
