Yolo Habitat Conservancy Marketing & Design
Before and after my redesign of the outreach flyer for the general public.
ORGANIZATION
Yolo Habitat Conservancy
TIMEFRAME
June - September 2017
MY ROLE
Marketing, Web Design and Social Media
SUMMARY
I translated a dense 2,000-page environmental plan into an accessible set of outreach materials including a redesigned website, set of brochures and social media campaign. The organization still uses these materials two years later and I have continued doing freelance design work with the director.
Background:
The Yolo Habitat Conservancy (YHC) is a joint powers agency responsible for producing a 50-year environmental conservation plan. This document was nearing completion, and ended up being over 2,000 pages of complex biological and legal jargon. I worked with the conservancy for 3 months during the public comment period where YHC shared the plan with the public to solicit feedback.
Problem:
Communicating the immense value of protecting endangered species and natural habitat was nearly impossible using only the dense plan, so I was tasked with simplifying the core concepts and themes into easily-digestible social media posts, webpages and materials.
New flyer for conservation groups explaining the environmental benefits, covered lands and protected species of the new plan.
Website Redesign:
After working with the Conservancy team to understand the important aspects of the plan and goals of the organization, I revamped the website to make the user experience more intuitive and clear. One of the largest problems I found was that navigating between hidden subpages to find specific information was extremely difficult. I recreated the homepage to simplify the user experience while preserving the key public meeting information.
Website homepage before and after my redesign to offer simple paths to other site pages.
Before and after of the permitting page to include more visual information.
A few things I learned:
- Precise communication: Language used on summary flyers needed to be clear and simple, yet extremely accurate and specific to the plan
- How public agencies work: I learned about the long process of approving a 50-year environmental plan
