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Challenge
Make Rotary relevant to a new generation by showcasing the organization’s diversity and impact.
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Solution
Create a platform for immersive storytelling that makes Rotary’s reach and impact clear and gives users more ways to get involved.
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Results
The new design system provides a powerful and flexible set of tools to communicate Rotary’s values and inspire action.
Reaching a new generation. While most people have heard about Rotary, few fully understand its true reach and impact. Rotary is one of the largest global non-profits in the world with over 1.2 million members in 35,000 clubs. The makeup of their membership has changed dramatically in recent decades, but their website told an inconsistent and outdated organizational story. Our challenge was to draw in new members by clearing away old stereotypes and revealing their true impact.
Areas of Expertise
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An Analog Brand Goes Digital
Rotary’s brand guide was a solid foundation, but the digital translation was oversimplified and limiting. We worked to elevate their digital brand by introducing new styles and elements that create a more powerful and flexible visual toolkit. To empower Rotary's 35k+ clubs, we used low-maintenance visual treatments, leveraged freely available fonts, and delivered a web style guide for easy sharing.
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A Plan for Engagement
We defined our objectives early and returned to them often. Our aim was to inspire, educate, and engage users. To accomplish this, we identified four key strategies: tell a compelling story, create an intuitive experience, clarify the case for joining, and make a lasting emotional connection with visitors. A comprehensive content strategy helps Rotary continue to support these objectives after handoff.
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Data-Informed Design
Data informed our decision-making from the start. We conducted a series of task-based usability tests to uncover common site frustrations, improve discoverability, and determine the effectiveness of our proposed navigation.
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A Highly-Flexible Parts Kit
To meet Rotary’s long-term goal of self-sufficiency, we needed to think beyond current needs. So in addition to designing key high-traffic pages, we built a highly customizable modular parts kit. With this kit, Rotary’s development team can build anything the content team can dream up, and new layouts are fast to create.
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A Plan for Accessibility
Focusing on accessibility and performance was a key part of our approach to rotary.org. We addressed these objectives in design and front-end development, and because the Rotary team was tasked with integrating the site into their CMS, we also documented best practices for maintaining performance after handoff.
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Summary
We redesigned Rotary’s online presence by updating their brand for the digital medium. Their team now has the tools to tell their story to new audiences with flexible, powerful templates and accessible design.
