Method Week № 9: A Design Sprint with Austin Justice Coalition
The creativity, work, fun, and controlled chaos that made up Method Week 9 came from a simple question: How can we as designers do more?
Funsize has always aimed to function differently than a traditional design agency. Although that’s probably the most kitschy, hear-it-all-the-time statement in the marketing book, it’s true! We wanted to create an environment in which we could experiment; somewhere that created more than digital products, that felt like family and gave us the opportunity to take time off for special experiences and passion projects.
Method Week 9 was, in many ways, a culmination of those wants. It represented an exciting milestone in our company’s history. We were able to help four (!!!) nonprofits solve big problems and make meaningful progress on projects that were important to their missions. We called this effort Funsize For Good.
One of those nonprofits was Austin Justice Coalition (AJC). The Funsize arm of the team included Tony, Mari, Paige, Terri. AJC’s team consisted of Joao Paulo (JP), Frances, Sukyi and Chas.
Here’s the story of what we accomplished in that week.
AJC’s Mission
AJC’s mission can be difficult to summarize because they do many different things. The group was founded to provide tools for people of color and those who are marginalized to improve their lives by being the driving force behind their own liberation.
They do this through education, policy reform, community empowerment, and civic engagement. Founded in 2015, AJC has been a catalyst of positive change toward economic and racial equality for Austin’s people of color by orchestrating impactful programs and events.
Project Needs
- A new logo for AJC and Higher Learning
- Succinct, clear messaging for community and funding
- A podcast strategy and implementation plan
- Sitemap for future website restructuring
Day 1: Discover & Uncover
The first day of the sprint was fully dedicated to aligning priorities. We had all key stakeholders from AJC in the room and left no stone unturned to ensure we would be tackling the most important challenge for AJC to that week.
We began by asking, “what should AJC focus on?”. We voted on top answers to establish the direction.
Next, we did a series of branding exercises to establish values. Gaining this understanding would be vital as we helped them with deliverables down the line. We wanted to establish a clear baseline and frame of thought to drive momentum forward.
We came out of these talks with clear principles we could use as a launching pad for ideas generated throughout the rest of the sprint.
Brand Voice Principles
- Inspiring: Triumphant, driven, strategic, influential, passionate, history, change-makers, fighters, unintimidated, resilience, grit, phoenix, relatable, common doing uncommon things, struggle, challenging, against-all-odds, anti-establishment, enlightening.
- Credible: Informed, nerdy, honest, accountable, trusted, reliable, legitimized, constructive debate, open leadership, take our status serious, independent of interest groups, firm erudite, a reliable source of information, thought leaders, humility, responsible, scholarly, ethical, intentional.
- Modern: youthful, pioneering, refreshing, open-minded, cutting-edge, clean, eye-opening, breath of fresh air, disruptive, inclusive, responsive, agile, revolutionary, dynamic, anticipatory, scrutinizing, innovative, creative, intuitive, current, pragmatic, self-critical.
- Straight-Forward: Unapologetic, steadfast, black & brown led, clear, focused, unpretentious, humanizing, direct, decisive, logical, reasonable, firm, matter-of-fact, non-duplicitious, no BS, bold.
Day 2: Inspire & Define
The second day was all about expanding the brand values, carefully examining and auditing the current web experience, and utilizing sketching exercises to iterate on new logo concepts for the brand.
We ran through another series of branding exercises to further hone AJC’s voice.
Terri whipped up an awesome sitemap to give AJC something tangible they could move forward with through development.
Day 3: Create & Decide
JP wasn’t able to be there for Day 2. So, we spent some of Day 3 catching him up on the progress made so that he could have a good starting point for the day.
Once we were all caught up, the whole team participated in Crazy 8’s — a rapid prototyping exercise designed to unearth everyone’s visual perception of AJC.
These sketches would heavily inform our first round of design work on the brand.
Logo Concepts (Round 1)
Day 4: Refine
Our final day focused on further iteration and execution on all our projects.
Logo Concepts (Round 2)
Logo-wise, we further narrowed down the concepts and directions that could be most valuable for AJC. We completed the rebrand and settled on a final logo. It’s now live on AJC’s site!
Podcast
The team made big moves on the podcast front, deciding on the name (Built on Truth) and even recording episode 1: Mental Health, Housing, and a Story About the Police Union Contract. Huge shout-out to Thomas for getting this recorded.
Conclusions
In a quick four days, our teams were able to effectively collaborate and create:
- AJC’s “onlyness” statement
- Brand voice and tones characteristics
- A homepage priority guide
- A sitemap
- Re-branded logo options
- Podcast strategy and plan
- A pilot podcast episode
The AJC team was thrilled with the accomplishments and speed of progress. They told us that the alignment and clarified vision provided by Method Week was extremely valuable for them, and that they were excited about their plan on moving the brand forward.
Funsize is digital service and product design agency that works with inspiring design and engineering teams to uncover opportunities, evolve popular products, bring new businesses to market, and prepare for the future. Worked at by friends. Got a project for us, Let’s Chat!
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