Northwestern Mutual — Belonging Moments, Year One

Overview

Care that stays visible.

Belonging & Impact is Northwestern Mutual’s year-round program for showing up for the communities it serves — Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ+, veteran, disability and neurodivergent communities, and the family observances everyone shares. Year One ran January through December 2026.

Every piece keeps the same grid, type system and brand core. Each moment gets its own color rhythm, pattern family and a single verified object, drawn from that community’s own visual tradition rather than from stock symbolism. Seen one at a time it reads as attention. Seen together it reads as a year of it.

At a glance

Client

Northwestern Mutual

Belonging & Impact, Brand Talent team.

Agency

UWG Inc.

Strategy, account, compliance and creative.

Role

Creative Director

System architecture, creative strategy, template design, e-card infrastructure.

Year One

2026

33 observances, January through December.

Shipped

40 posts · 19 motion

4:5 for Meta, Instagram, LinkedIn and X; silent 9:16 under 15 seconds; advisor e-cards in 14 languages.

Standards

WCAG 2.1 AA

Contrast-checked palettes, no flicker above 3 Hz, motion that respects reduced-motion settings.

The Year

33 observances, one continuous rhythm.

In calendar order, January to December. Select any card to read it at full size with the copy that ran with it.

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — MLK Day, 4:5 social post — MLK DayJan 19

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Black History Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Black History Month — Post 1Feb 1–28

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Black History Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Black History Month — Post 2Feb 1–28

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Ramadan, 4:5 social post — RamadanFeb 17 – Mar 18

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Women's History Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Women's History Month — Post 1Mar 1–31

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Women's History Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Women's History Month — Post 2Mar 1–31

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — NM Founder's Day, 4:5 social post — NM Founder's DayMar 2

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — International Women's Day, 4:5 social post — International Women's DayMar 8

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Neurodiversity Celebration Week, 4:5 social post — Neurodiversity Celebration WeekMar 16–22

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Eid Al-Fitr, 4:5 social post — Eid Al-FitrMar 19–20

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Generations Awareness Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Generations Awareness Month — Post 1Apr 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Generations Awareness Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Generations Awareness Month — Post 2Apr 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Easter, 4:5 social post — EasterApr 5

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Yom Hashoah, 4:5 social post — Yom HashoahApr 13–14

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Mother's Day, 4:5 social post — Mother's DayMay 10

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Memorial Day, 4:5 social post — Memorial DayMay 25

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Eid Al-Adha, 4:5 social post — Eid Al-AdhaMay 26–27

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Pride Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Pride Month — Post 1Jun 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Pride Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Pride Month — Post 2Jun 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Juneteenth, 4:5 social post — JuneteenthJun 19

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Father's Day, 4:5 social post — Father's DayJun 21

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Independence Day, 4:5 social post — Independence DayJul 4

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Labor Day, 4:5 social post — Labor DaySep 7

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — 9/11 Remembrance, 4:5 social post — 9/11 RemembranceSep 11

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Rosh Hashanah, 4:5 social post — Rosh HashanahSep 11–13

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 1Sep 15 – Oct 15

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 2Sep 15 – Oct 15

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Yom Kippur, 4:5 social post — Yom KippurSep 20–21

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Disability Awareness Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Disability Awareness Month — Post 1Oct 1–31

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Disability Awareness Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Disability Awareness Month — Post 2Oct 1–31

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — World Mental Health Day, 4:5 social post — World Mental Health DayOct 10

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Indigenous Peoples' Day, 4:5 social post — Indigenous Peoples' DayOct 12

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Veterans & Military Families Month — Post 1, 4:5 social post — Veterans & Military Families Month — Post 1Nov 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Veterans & Military Families Month — Post 2, 4:5 social post — Veterans & Military Families Month — Post 2Nov 1–30

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Veterans Day, 4:5 social post — Veterans DayNov 11

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Thanksgiving, 4:5 social post — ThanksgivingNov 26

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — General Happy Holidays, 4:5 social post — General Happy HolidaysDec

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Hanukkah, 4:5 social post — HanukkahDec 4–12

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — Christmas, 4:5 social post — ChristmasDec 25

Northwestern Mutual Belonging Moments — General Holiday Post, 4:5 social post — General Holiday PostEvergreen

Close looks

Four where the decisions show.

Yom Hashoah · Apr 13–14

Restraint is the design.

The only card in the year that opens onto a black field. Six flames, a memorial lamp, nothing else. No striped patterns, no barbed wire, no yellow star — the imagery that gets reached for here is the imagery that hurts. Candlelight is the entire light logic, and the copy stays at the level of "memory lives on."

Ramadan · Feb 17 – Mar 18

Lunar time, cyclical composition.

Ramadan moves against the solar calendar, so the geometry turns rather than radiates. A lantern and an eight-point tessellation carry it. The mosque-as-sole-identifier and the crescent-as-shorthand stay out; the crescent that remains is one element inside the pattern, not the badge on top of it.

Pride Month — Post 1 · Jun 1–30

Spectrum with a subject.

Full spectrum, but folded into a heart the eye has to read rather than a flag dropped over the frame. The line is "live authentically, always" — an address to a person. That is the difference between a Pride post and a rainbow applied to a logo.

Indigenous Peoples' Day · Oct 12

Survivance, not tragedy.

A single eagle feather and a Zia sun on an earth palette. No headdress, no pan-Indian pattern standing in for six hundred nations, no romanticized landscape. The frame honors continuation, which is what the day is actually about.

The System

One grid. Four layers.

Every piece is built in the same order, from the layer that never changes to the layer that changes every time. That is what lets a Yom HaShoah card and a Pride post read as the same brand without reading as the same message.

1 · Brand core

Navy, gold and sky. The grid, the type system and the NM mark. Immutable across all 40 pieces.

2 · System spine

Light logic — dawn for renewal, candlelight for remembrance, full spectrum for celebration — a repeat rhythm that suggests continuity, and material cues that read as woven, carved or pressed.

3 · Community cue

An accent hue at no more than a fifth of the frame, and a pattern family chosen for meaning: kente-derived rhythm, papel picado, Islamic tessellation, pomegranate and olive, medicine-wheel quadrants, spectrum bands.

4 · Event layer

One culturally verified object, a temporal marker, and motion that fades or unfurls at under 3 Hz. Nothing flickers, nothing shouts.

In motion

19 cut for 9:16.

Silent autoplay under fifteen seconds, caption-ready, built to read with the sound off.

MLK DayJan 19

Black History Month — Post 1Feb 1–28

RamadanFeb 17 – Mar 18

Women's History Month — Post 1Mar 1–31

NM Founder's DayMar 2

International Women's DayMar 8

Neurodiversity Celebration WeekMar 16–22

Eid Al-FitrMar 19–20

Generations Awareness Month — Post 1Apr 1–30

Mother's DayMay 10

Memorial DayMay 25

Pride Month — Post 1Jun 1–30

Father's DayJun 21

Independence DayJul 4

Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 1Sep 15 – Oct 15

Hispanic Heritage Month — Post 2Sep 15 – Oct 15

Veterans & Military Families Month — Post 1Nov 1–30

Veterans DayNov 11

ThanksgivingNov 26

In Every Language

Father’s Day, 14 ways.

One card, redrawn so the type sits correctly in every script — Arabic and Hebrew set right to left, Chinese, Japanese and Korean set with their own line breaks, the illustration holding its position throughout. Advisors send the language their client reads.

Father’s Day card in Haitian Creole — Haitian Creole

Father’s Day card in Japanese — Japanese

Father’s Day card in Ukrainian — Ukrainian

My Role

Creative Director — system architect.

As Creative Director at UWG, I designed Northwestern Mutual's year-long Belonging & Impact multicultural creative system — a framework that keeps order and emotion in equal measure across 33 observances while the grid stays constant and color, pattern, and pacing shift per moment.

I led system design, creative strategy, template architecture, and the advisor-facing e-card infrastructure, working alongside the UWG strategy, account, and compliance teams. The build shipped WCAG-AA accessible static and motion in bilingual EN/ES, engineered so the spine stays continuous across every channel.

Credits

UWG

Alexis MonetteCreative Director
Adan Romero
Keonte Carter
Jorge ValdezAssistant Creative Director, Art
Gabriel GonzalezAssistant Creative Director, Copy
Chad McLeanAccount Director
Kristin Smith-ClintonStrategy
Kayla Fischer
John Wall

NWM Belonging