SOLUTION
RICHMOND ED FUND BRAND REFRESH & WEBSITE REDESIGN
To follow the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation’s evolution into an innovative venture fund aimed at fostering opportunity and equity to all students, the aim is to shift their messaging and branding to now focus on showcasing the real impact they have had, are having, and will have, both in the school system and in the community at large.
Redesigned home page shown above
PROCESS
KEY INSIGHTS & RESEARCH
1
RISK
Corporations despise risk. So when looking to make donations, what they look for in organizations, first and foremost, is a credible track record of being both safe and impactful.
TARGET PERSONA
Our target persona is corporations or large organizations with both a history of donating, and with possible ties to the city of Richmond itself (i.e. Dominion, Lego, Amazon).
WHITEBOARD WIREFRAMES
Drawing up whiteboard wireframes gave us the flexibility to iterate quickly and build the basic structure of how we wanted to build out the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation’s new website. The goal of this stage of the ideation process was to showcase the organization’s hard, statistic numbers, while maintaining an important information hierarchy.
LO-FI WIREFRAMES
To prepare for our check-in with the client, I created a low-fidelity mockup that closely followed the structure of the previously iterated whiteboard wireframes.
CLIENT MEETING NOTES
“There’s definitely a lack of goals and a definition of success. We need KPIs, otherwise what we’re asking for comes off as entitlement and doesn’t play well with the types of investments we need.” - Taikein Cooper
INSPIRATION MOODBOARD
LOGO & COLOR ITERATIONS
For the logo design process, my teammate, Alicia Rydel, and I wanted to evoke a sense of impact, growth, and innovation. All while keeping unity of the shapes and colors that we used, how the logo mark would potentially interact and live among other collateral, and conveying the intent of "merging of ideas" in mind. Using simple shapes and primary colors as a nod to grade school learning, we went through many iterations before landing on the final logo featured below.
Old Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation logo
Experimenting with logo shapes and color variations
Final logo concepts, with the end logo starred
WEB & MEDIA COLLATERAL
The social mockups below, done by Walid Al-Tinawi, show a variety of example posts. These mockups show the logo broken down into its basic shapes and used as patterning for any media collateral the foundation might need. The infinite use of patterns would keep the collateral fresh and exciting, all while maintaining a cohesive look echoing the original logo.
FINAL WEBSITE DESIGN
REFLECTIONS
EMPATHY AND PERSPECTIVE
Engaging with the mission and leader of the non-profit broadened my perspective on the social issues facing our school systems and what others are doing to support current students. I wanted to be mindful and really take into account the client’s perspective in order to bring about his vision for the redesign. I am grateful to the Richmond Ed Fund and Taikein Cooper for the chance to put my skills to the test and to come away as a better designer.
VALUE OF COLLABORATION
I am thankful to the diligent work of my team for constantly moving forward with a high level of collaboration and craft towards a common goal. My teammates really reinforced staying accountable and disciplined, and continually pushed me to “up my game” to bring about the best possible outcome for this project. I am so proud of the work we accomplished as a team in such a short amount of time.
But enough about me,
tell me about you!