Yolo Habitat Conservancy Marketing & Design

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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.

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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.

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Website homepage before and after my redesign to offer simple paths to other site pages. 

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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