Warm Hearts of Douglas County
POSTCARD & WEBSITE DESIGN PROJECT
MEET THE CLIENT
Warm Hearts of Douglas County is a non-profit organization that was established in 1982 to provide financial assistance to Douglas County residents who struggle to pay their heating and fuel bills. They've partnered with the community to provide warmth to more than 9600 individuals and 4150 families in the past 10 years.
They approached us during their 2018 planning season for help in broadening their audience. They recognized that reaching a younger demographic meant a strong web presence and more appealing visuals in their paper handouts. We've had the pleasure of partnering with their team every year since. Our goals were to present warm tones, inviting images, and to convey a feeling of warmth and comfort.
The original project consisted of several elements: re-designing their existing brochure that was mailed to the entire county and designing and developing a website based on their brochure that also allowed donors to give to their cause in a simple and secured way. We've since changed their brochure and created two targeted postcards in it's place and updated their website to reflect the design and style updates. The initial re-design took about five weeks, and ongoing updates take two to three weeks each year.
was chosen as their logo and headline font. The board of directors desired a simple, legible, and timeless font.
Palatino Linotype
FUTURA & FUTURA LIGHT
were selected as secondary fonts because they provided a clean and simple contract to the organization's statelier primary font.
This project began with information gathering. I met with Warm Heart's board member, John Sayler, several times throughout the course of 2 weeks to gather and refine the information they would like displayed. Next, we worked on the brochure. After 2-3 drafts by John and our content editor, we progressed to finalize the images used.
Once the brochure was printed by our printing partner, ProPrint KS, the website hurdle began! We presented John with several layout options, and from there transferred the information from the brochure to a web-friendly design. John opted to have a site that functioned as an online brochure, with the added bonus of a "donate" button.
The biggest struggle through this process was our initial attempt to simply update their existing site. With lost passwords and little access to it's original developer, we eventually decided to scrap that plan and start from the group up. It was smooth sailing from there to the end!
Images to the left represent the initial brochure draft provided by the client, along with the first editions of our brochure and website. As they are an ongoing client of ours, we've since updated the look and style of their marketing materials. The updated designs are shown above.