Embedded Files
A New Identity & Website
In 2019, I was tasked with leading the revamp of Pratt Center’s identity and website to more authentically communicate our mission and values and help us align our projects and public-facing materials in one unified system. The Center was approaching its 60th year of pioneering applied research, policy advocacy, and community planning work aimed at building a more just and sustainable New York City Center, and my team had just completed an update of our 5-year strategic plan. Our work was needed more than ever, but we needed new tools for communication, both internally among our team, and externally with our partners, supporters and the wider world.
I created a project brief outlining the rationale and goals of the project, and gathered input from our team. We assembled a short list of designers and used the brief to solicit proposals. The designer we selected, Yeju Choi, of Nowhere Office led us through a multi-stage research and consultation process to crystallize, organize and visualize the unique set of values and attitudes core to Pratt Center’s identity.
The Identity System
Grounding the new identity, a logo was designed by arranging the parts of the Center’s name into the shape of a P. A line along one side helps reinforce the structure, but also keeps it open and transparent. The concrete structure of the logo represents the solid reputation and trust the Center had developed with clients over decades, while its openness represents the Center's openness to new partnerships and innovative approaches.
The positioning of the logo on the bottom left is also an integral part of the identity, representing how Pratt Center works—on the ground alongside and supporting those community groups at the forefront of the movement for racial, economic, and environmental justice.
The new identity revived some of the visual and verbal elements of Street, a magazine published by the Center in the 1970s. Street Magazine covered a variety of urban environmental issues, big and small, from legislative actions to street tips on how to throw a block party, in a robust and dynamic yet no-frills verbal and visual language. A variety of secondary typefaces and colors are used to represent the unique voices of the Center’s projects.
An Energy-Saving Website
In the final step of the process, we worked with web development firm, Graybits, to build a new website that had a reduced energy footprint and prioritized direct access to information. I oversaw content development for the new site, including drafting and reviewing new copy, coordinating feedback and approvals with senior leadership, and training staff in using our new content management system.
By cutting out extraneous styling and visual elements, and rendering images in low-resolution, the new prattcenter.net breaks from conventional web design, and ranks cleaner than 95% of other sites that have been tested by the Website Carbon Calculator.
The Launch
After finalizing the new identity, and testing it out over several months, I developed a communications plan with the goal of re-introducing our followers to the Pratt Center by explaining how the organization’s unique attitude, values and approach are reflected in the new system. We developed a feature story highlighting these connections, which was supplemented by three topical blog posts, sharing lessons we had learned through the process. The blogs covered:
How A Website Embodies Our Commitment to Sustainability, and
Four Common Mistakes to Avoid when Designing Your Nonprofit’s Website.
The launch story and blog posts became the featured content for our monthly newsletter, and were adapted for a three post series on our Instagram channel.
Brand Development & Management
In the years that followed, I aligned communication efforts across the organization to ensure consistency and quality of materials produced by our team, from social media graphics and slide decks to informational 1-pagers and policy reports.
I created processes for onboarding designers and new staff, developed a library of visual assets and templates, and hosted trainings to guide the team in both understanding the system and knowing how to use it. The best part of this role was the regular opportunity it gave me to collaborate with team members to find the right tone of voice, clarify messaging, and sharpen visuals to ensure their individual projects had a unique identity, but also aligned with the overall system.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse