Creative Direction / Website Design

Brand Origin Story

Parks & People is a nonprofit with a mission to improve Baltimore through green space and education. Parks & People has worked since 1984 to build public-private partnerships that sustain and improve Baltimore’s parks and green spaces.

Industry:

Nonprofit/ Community Development

Background:

As Communications Manager at Parks & People, I am tasked with creating and implementing strategies to brand and promote the organization effectively. Most modern business need an effective website. It’s their digital homebase for information, products, or services. Parks & People initially had a WordPress website. As part of their 40th-anniversary I decided to take their website in a new direction using Squarespace, a platform I had extensive background using.

Role

• Communications Manager

My Website Goals

1. Transfer the old site to Squarespace

2. Reduce the number of clicks it took to donate

3. Refresh the site with a modern design - Big bold header text, less body copy, big images.

4. Design a unique 40th-anniversary visual brand identity

5. Add a dedicated events page

6. Create easy to manage, image first, blog and parks project pages.

Discovery

I combed through the old website, taking notes, and highlighting areas for improvement. It took 3 clicks to reach the donation page and the donation button was not clear in the navigation. The old site was text heavy and not optimized for search engines. Many pages lacked compelling imagery. There were close to 50 park projects completed by the organization which were not prominently featured.

Squarespace Website Design

Theme

Tumbling Green Space

Inspiration

Maps featuring greenspace, campus wayfinding signage, and parks of course!

Design

Increasing brand awareness was a key component of my design direction. Nike has it’s iconic checkmark swoosh. Apple has its circular, bite-out-of-the-apple logo mark. Both symbols are basic shapes with strong brand recognition. Parks & People has its rectangular logo shape which I drew inspiration from. I designed the website with bold text that clearly states the mission, vison, and values of the organization and used a strong visual shape to garner brand recognition using simplistic forms, a green rectangle like plots of land — green space. The use of the rectangle is used throughout the site. A subtle animation carries the greenspace with you on the desktop version of the homepage. Images on the site are rectangles overflowing with green views of parks and people, and text is highlighted with green rectangles.

Homepage Design

Youth Programming Page Designs

Park Project Page Design

Visit the website: Parks & People