After reading countless reports, outlining our target audience profiles and compiling our user insights, we were ready to draft our initial brand concepts.
Our creative team came up with options for names, URLs, taglines and key messages. Then we set up targeted focus groups to get real-time feedback from our relevant audiences. The questions and critiques helped us refine our direction and create a concrete plan for the new website rollout.
Once we had community feedback and a better sense of direction, we entered into the branding and web design phase. Our creative team collaborated to develop a compass brand mark that spoke to the initiative’s key messages of hope, navigation and direction. Then, they refined the brand’s positioning statement to distill it down to its core.
Easy-to-access resources helping young people in Stark County to overcome obstacles and achieve their full potential.
Based on our initial conversations with the StarkMHAR team, we knew the audience we were targeting was comprised of heavy mobile users. We decided to take a mobile-first approach to the website design, complete with a robust search feature with autocomplete and spelling suggestions.
By keeping the colors aligned with the StarkMHAR pallet, we were able to maintain the positive brand perception they have in the community and create a bright, colorful interface. Our trauma-informed approach to the layout included rounded corners, smiling faces, images of the outdoors and a custom art style to convey difficult topics. The simple, straightforward language helped us overcome language and literacy barriers, which we knew could be a challenge.
Because Stark Help Central is such a geographically-specific tool, we knew we wanted to create the atmosphere of Stark County on the website. To do that, we set up a two-day photo shoot in all corners of our community, from downtown Canton and Massillon to Alliance and Canal Fulton. We brought together diverse models of all ages and took photos of them in relevant places that support the resources provided on Stark Help Central. We use these photos on the website, on social media channels and throughout our video content to help put a personal touch on this digital information hub.
For the extremely sensitive topics we cover on Stark Help Central, we knew we needed an alternative art style, so we weren’t assigning images of real people to these challenges. Instead, we developed custom drawing, illustrations and animations. These characters appear on the website and throughout our marketing materials when talking about difficult, complex issues.
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