Grow NorthWest
Branding & Copy writing
Project Overview
CHALLENGE
GROW Northwest sought to boost their brand presence by building a new website, refining their mission and vision statements, and establishing a style guide for all their communications. This involved helping them define their brand identity and creating a comprehensive brand style guide that reflected their values and goals. I worked closely with them to update their mission and vision statements, ensuring that they accurately represented the organization's purpose and aspirations. I also developed the website copy ensuring that it resonates with their target audience and accurately communicates their message.
INSIGHT
GROW is a registered 501(c)(3) organization that believes in creating inclusive neighbourhood gardening communities by providing people with the ability and accessibility to grow their own organic produce. The organization will celebrate their 50th year of service to the city in the year 2023.
MY SCOPE OF WORK
1. Copy Writing
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Create and edit copy for their new website. This involved collaborating with a UX Designer who was designing the new website.
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Help in redefining their Mission and Vision statements
2. Branding
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Create a brand style guide that reflects the brand’s purpose and values including guidelines for the usage of font, color, logo, graphics, photographs, etc. that the non-profit organization could use to achieve a consistent and systematic approach to all their marketing materials.
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Design and create corporate templates including email signatures, presentation templates, and letterheads for stationery and business cards that were consistent with the Brand Style Guide.
CLIENT
DURATION
5 months
TEAM
Project Coordinator & Board Member of GROW Northwest - Brianna Henderson
UX Designer - Song Ji
Research
GOALS
Understand the organization's real story - their actual goals and aspirations through candid conversations, interviews, and studying required documents. This will be my foundation while I rewrite content for the new website, restructure their mission & vision statements, and create a brand style guide.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
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Conduct interviews with board members
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Analyze the existing website and other written templates of email marketing and social media marketing to understand the current voice and tone of the brand
Current State Evaluation
To understand the current experience and pain points of users, I analyzed the existing information available on the club's website.
existing website snapshots
I further read through various documents, including their employee handbook, board manual, communication policy, and history of GROW's advocacy to truly understand their mission and existing language preference.
Snapshot of research reading materialÂ
Research Synthesis
KEY INSIGHTS
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The current website copy needed to be reworded to be consistent with the organization's brand voice.
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​The four categories, 'BUILD, ADVOCATE, FUND, AQUIRE' is not comprehensive of everything the organization does. ​
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The information flow on every page needed to be restructured to ensure a more coherent and effectual reading experience.
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There was no clear brand style apart from the logo. Language voice and tone needed to be defined, along with other elements like color usage, photography preferences, and corporate templates.
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Since this is largely a volunteer-led organization, communication is handled by many individuals. Without a clear brand style guide, there seems to be inconsistency in brand voice and tone.
Design Process
MY KEY DELIVERABLES
1. Copywriting -
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Provide all written content for the website​
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Rewrite the brand Mission & Vision statements
2. Create a Brand Style Guide
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A comprehensive yet concise document stating various preferences of the organization.
Copywriting
For my first task of providing all UX copy for the website, I had to collaborate with the UX designer on board. To maintain efficient communication, we worked on Google Slides and set up a system there, where I could see draft designs for each page, write draft text for the designed pages, and as a team, we would evaluate if the page worked before submitting it to the board for review and comments.
Screenshots of collaboration – providing written content for new website to UX Designer
The content for each and every webpage had to be optimized. This meant for a few pages coming up with totally new content for specific paragraphs where text was required (according to the design), for a few pages it meant tweaking the design to optimize the information flow. Other pages did not need major revisions, only the text needed to be rewritten to follow the brand style.
I have showcased below four instances to explain this in better detail.
Instance #1
The categories under the website's 'What we do' section were 'Build, Advocate, Fund, and Acquire'. After conducting extensive research, I recommended that the categories be updated to "Build, Harvest, Fund, and Educate". These updated categories more comprehensively represent the areas in which GROW Northwest is invested. Following discussions with the Board, this change was successfully implemented.
Screenshots of existing write-up under the section 'What we do'.
Screenshots of proposed 'What we do' section.
Instance #2
I had to rewrite and reorganize the content on each page to optimize user flow. Following is an example of the 'Our Story' page - I wrote a small writeup on the story of GROW Northwest to go before the Mission & Vision Statements.
Screenshots of collaboration – recommending a new order of information flow
Instance #3
This reorganization and rewriting of content had to be done for every webpage. Following is an example of the 'Get Involved' page - The new content I proposed is better categorized and clear.
Screenshots of existing write-up under the section 'What we do'.
Screenshots of collaboration – providing written content for new sections under 'Get Involved'.
Instance #4
The organization's vision and mission statements needed to be reworded to sound more passionate and ambitious. I read many mission and vision statements of other non-profit organizations to understand how these needed to be structured.
Screenshots of existing Vision & Mission Statements.
Screenshots of proposed Vision & Mission Statements.
Brand Style Guide
For my second task of creating a Brand Style Guide, I collaborated closely with Brianna Henderson, the Project Coordinator and Board Member of GROW Northwest. She helped me delve into the GROW archives, years of internal and external communication, and email systems to identify any existing Brand Style. She would also present the draft document to the Board every Monday to get their feedback, so I could make any changes as and when there were inputs. Since this was a completely new document for GROW and to make sure that the aim of the document was clear, I made a list of characteristics that the document would have to fulfill.
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DOCUMENT CHARACTERISTICS
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A comprehensive yet concise document stating various preferences of the organization.
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To be used by a large number of people who volunteer with GROW Northwest.
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It shouldn't be too long, but directive - a document that members can easily reference.
Screenshots of collaboration – there was constant communication to ensure this was done quickly and efficiently. We got in touch with a long-standing Board Member of GROW, Michael McNutt, to give his detailed inputs frequently.
DESIGN PROCESS
Draft Outline
The first step was to identify the overall flow of the document - the various elements to include that are necessary to ensure a consistent voice and style of the brand even when multiple people participate in brand communication.
The first section will elaborate on the different qualities of the brand -
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Mission & Vision Statements
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Brand Values
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Brand Personality tenets
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'Brand personality refers to human characteristics associated with a brand. They're expressed as adjectives that convey how you want people to perceive you. A helpful tool to create consistency in our messaging, since we take turns writing our materials'.
The description on the page explaining how to use the information in the style guide.
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Draft Outline
Our mission
Our values
Our personality tenets
Logos
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Logo best practices
Visual Identity
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Color palettes
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Typography
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Imagery
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Photography best practices
Corporate Templates
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Email Signature
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Presentation templates
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Stationary
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Business cards
Editorial Guidelines
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Voice Overview
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Voice examples
Detailing Each Section
LOGO
The brand had an established logo but no guidelines on how to use it. I created different variations of the logo for different usages including how to use it in photographs, icon variations of the logo, directions for co-branding, and logo best practices.
VISUAL IDENTITY
Similarly, I created guidelines for the Brand's visual identity like Color Palette, Typography usages, Imagery guidelines, and Photography best practices. The new website also followed these brand styles.
CORPORATE TEMPLATES
To ensure that communication from the board remains consistent, I created various corporate templates that could be used including email signatures, presentation templates, stationary templates with the GROW letterhead, and Business card designs.
EDITORIAL GUIDELINES
The brand personality and values serve as a brief guideline on how the brand aims to be perceived by the audience. This is to be referenced when any communication is made by the brand. We put together a few email and branding language examples to help make this clearer.
The board provided lots of invaluable inputs which were used to refine the adjectives used in brand personality.
Creating the Document
The final step was to incorporate all comments, recommendations, and feedback from the board into one document. I made sure the document remained directive, and not too long, to make sure it would be easily accessible to be referenced by anyone who needed guidance on the brand identity.
Conclusion
Reflection
This project has provided me with valuable insights into the significance of collaboration and effective communication within a professional setting. Collaborating with the Board Members and obtaining their constant feedback allowed for the successful delivery of a project that precisely aligned with their vision. Additionally, the experience of collaborating with another UX designer demonstrated the advantages of collective brainstorming and refinement of ideas.
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It was my first time creating a Brand Style Guide for an organization. This part of the project really encouraged me to research more than usual and explore even the existing communication system of GROW. This in-depth research helped to create a brand style guide that is at par with the organization's identity.
I truly understood how much of a difference in-depth research can make to a project.
