WHAT THEY NEEDED:
LA’s own Homeboy Industries helps former gang members rebuild their lives by teaching them to create fantastic products—everything from clothing to pastries, salsa to solar panels. Its downtown location is a warm, active place—filled with hopeful voices and the smell of great things cooking. Unfortunately, their existing site wasn’t capturing this feeling. It presented navigation problems and didn’t effectively explain to donors how their money was being put to use. This had a bad effect on online donations.
WHAT I DID:
As brand strategist and creative director, I wanted to capture the energized feeling you get when you’re walking the halls. The new site’s palette drew on colors found throughout the building (including the bakery’s fantastic bread). Images would focus on human faces and stories would be told in the words of its amazing people (for example, livestreams of morning meetings and the “Thought of the Day”). An infographic clarified everything that Homeboy Industries does… and how they make a difference.
The new site became a powerful new tool for Homeboy Industries. Unique page views more than doubled and online donations rose by 45%.
