enable: DISABILITY & ACCESS
visual design, branding
April - June 2018
Enable is nonprofit organization that aims to address issues of disability inequality by providing workshops and accessibility training to nonprofit organizations that serve marginalized communities.
This project is a campaign concept created by a team of four (including myself) to address a specific social issue of our choosing. My role consisted of research, design (visual & written content), and logistical planning. I focused on interviews, workshop & conference programming, the board game, schedule, and budget.
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overview
Our campaign revolves around four core workshops to educate representatives from various Bay Area nonprofits, and ends with a conference that connects our team to each nonprofit to cater a curriculum specific to that nonprofit’s services.
Through this programming, we hope to encourage accessibility within nonprofits' workplace and services.
In addition to these workshops, we also promote disability awareness through general marketing materials like billboards, bus ads, and posters.
01: brainstorming
What social issue did we want to focus on?
Did we want to draw on our personal experiences, or expand on our areas of interest?
How could we narrow down our interests and come up with project idea that was do-able within 7 weeks?
What issues were we already knowledgable in? If we did not have knowledge, did we have readily accessible resources to obtain more information?
Conclusion:
After brainstorming, we decided to narrow down our topic to accessibility for disabled folks (specifically disabled folks that have other marginalized identities), with our target audience for this campaign being nonprofit employees.
02: RESEARCH
We conducted several interviews (both with disabled folks and nonprofit employees) and did background research online in order to answer the following questions:
Where do disabled folks lack support?
How do disabled folks want to be supported by able-bodied people?
What current accessibility measures exist on a systemic level?
How well is accessibility for disabled folks being addressed in nonprofit spaces?
What areas of accessibility needs improvement?
After we gather these answers, how can we make a tangible impact with our campaign?
CONCLUSION
Accessibility in the US is currently very surface-level and minimal.
Disabled folks in general need more systemic support but get most of their support through interpersonal relationships.
Nonprofits severely lack accessibility measures
With these answers, we came up with this strategy:
03: Branding
04: final PRODUCT!
GENERAL CAMPAIGN
In addition to our workshop series, our team at Enable also has general advertising off season (i.e. not during workshop sessions). This includes:
General posters that bring awareness to ableism. These will be put up in local small businesses
Billboards and bus ads featured throughout the Bay Area
These deliverables were designed by Timothea.
NONPROFIT OUTREACH
During our outreach to nonprofits, Enable will present the employees with educational materials regarding our organization. We’ll give them a folder that contains our
Brochure that details Enable’s background, mission, and goals (designer: Timothea)
Workshop Accordion that introduces workshops + timeline (designer: me)
Business Materials (designer: Emily)
workshop + conference
Our workshop and conference materials include workshop posters, a conference program, as well as a board game and other merchandise that the workshop participants will be able to bring back to their nonprofits.
The posters and program were both designed by me.
BOARD GAME
Our board game, Unable Enable, takes after the classic game of Chutes and Ladders but with a twist! Each player plays as an imaginary character with a different set of marginalized identities, and only move up and down the stairs and slides if their character allows or forces them to do so.
We created this to be an educational tool that can help nonprofit employees who did not attend our training to learn about the nuances of living life with disabilities and/or other marginalizations.
The board game was designed by me, while the cards were designed by Emily.
WEBSITE
designed by me!
OTHER MERCHANDISE
designed by Cherilyn
05: refLEction
What went smoothly?
creating the workshop curriculum
team communication & visual consistency
What was challenging?
narrowing down our topic
deciding branding appropriate for nonprofits
interviews & the amount of time / resources we had to conduct them
board game design! both visual and content design had huge learning curves
What would I change?
audience testing! for almost all of our deliverables (but mostly workshop curriculum and board game