Southwest Workers Union
An Organization of Low-Income, Working Class Families and Youth in San Antonio, Texas
We helped Southwest Workers Union with:
Brand Refinements
Squarespace Website Design & Build
How It Started…
When Southwest Workers Union reached out to us, they stated that their website really needed an update and better flow to fully encompass the organization's values and programs. Their main challenge was that they have multiple projects and many of them had their own websites, which was a maintenance and usability nightmare. They have a large audience and they wanted the site to be an easy-to-navigate, helpful resource for workers. They also wanted to make sure that new and existing members could access relevant information, find upcoming events and engage in resources they need for their justice work.
We knew getting all of their websites under one roof was priority number one, but we also knew that Squarespace would be a better platform for them, versus Wix, which they had been using.
Brand Refinements with Typography & Color
Right off the bat, we knew that accessibility was of utmost importance to Southwest Workers Union and so we decided that Brand Refinements were in order. Not only can Brand Refinements elevate your visual branding, but they can also make your branding more accessible by expanding the font palette to be more legible and the color palette to have higher contrast ratios. The things that SWU wanted their brand to convey was that they are accessible, community-oriented, and they wanted it to feel rooted in nature.
In order to achieve this, we used a black and white version of their logo and pulled in soft, organic colors that are mostly muted, but have a few pops of high-contrast. The fonts that our design team chose are energetic, flexible and geometric. They convey a friendliness that helps get the “community-oriented” feeling across.
Once the brand was in order, we were ready to bring it to life on the website!
Squarespace Website Redesign
We had two primary goals when updating the Southwest Workers Union website:
Ensure the website was straightforward and easy-to-navigate for the various groups of people that use the website
Make sure the website was visually on-brand with the new visual brand direction we created with their Brand Refinements
We started out by creating a requirements document and detailing each and every function on the website. During this phase, we solidified the primary navigation and the footer. We also decided on any necessary integrations or apps that were needed to achieve the goals of the client. For SWU, we ensured Action Network was set up for email marketing and we also set up Weglot for translation services.
Once the requirements of the website were documented, our design team got to work building an on-brand website that met the clients needs. We did this using a premium design template as a base. For this project, we recommended the Studio89 Template by Applet Studio. The result is a much more efficient website that is user-friendly and clearly communicates what Southwest Workers Union does.
