Arts Workers United
Arts Workers United (AWU) is dedicated to empowering and advocating for arts workers across the United States. Their mission is to educate, organise, and mobilise individuals to advance the interests of the Creative Economy through visible advocacy, grassroots efforts, and impactful lobbying. I was entrusted with the critical task of creating a web platform that would serve as the central hub for their mission. AWU needed an online space that would inform, inspire and unite their community. We designed a platform to facilitate donations, allowing supporters to directly contribute to AWU’s advocacy efforts, and to offer membership options that fostered a strong, interconnected community. The site provides with essential resources and real-time updates on legislative actions, empowering grassroots efforts and amplifying the voice of the Arts & Culture sector. My team's design work aimed to make the platform a powerful tool in the national conversation, ensuring that arts workers had the visibility and support they needed.
Team
AWU: Nhi Corcoran, Jenny Grace Makholm, Carson Elrod
DESIGN DIRECTOR: Angelina Severino
WEB DESIGNER: Lucie van Baaren aka Summerthyme
WEBFLOW DEVELOPER: Irina Zaman
BRANDING: One Design Company
Power of Branding
AWU’s award-winning branding is a masterful storytelling tool that brings their mission to life. AWU's mark – a modern interpretation of a traditional union seal – was a natural choice for animation in the homepage header, instantly drawing users into the narrative of solidarity and empowerment.
The powerful ligatures create a palpable sense of unity, which we expanded upon by incorporating custom ligatures into every header's title. This consistent, cohesive design language reinforces AWU’s message of collective strength and purpose.
Ligatures
Creating custom ligatures for AWU’s website was both an artistic and technical challenge. The process involved carefully integrating these new ligatures into the existing font file, ensuring that all text remained SEO-friendly and recognisable by Google. This required meticulous attention to detail, particularly when activating the ligatures in Webflow by assigning a custom “ligature” class.
To ensure a seamless client hand-off, we thoroughly documented each step of the process, providing clear instructions for future use and updates, guaranteeing that the brand's unique visual identity remains consistent and functional.
Attention to detail
We paid great attention to detail in the design of AWU's website, ensuring that every aspect contributed to a cohesive and engaging user experience. Micro-interactions were carefully crafted to provide subtle, responsive feedback, making navigation feel intuitive and rewarding. On-scroll animations were thoughtfully implemented to guide the user's journey, highlighting key content and enhancing the storytelling experience. These elements, combined, create a dynamic and immersive website that not only captures attention but also keeps users deeply engaged with the content.
We created playful interactive elements that allow users to almost "physically" interact with the brand, making the digital experience feel tactile and engaging
We crafted a cogwheel animation using AWU's marks (seals) to symbolise arts workers as a powerful, interconnected mechanism driving the creative sector, visually reinforcing their crucial role in the economy
Responsiveness
And of course, we made sure that the website is responsive on all devices, ensuring a seamless experience whether users are browsing on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone. The design adapts fluidly to different screen sizes, maintaining the integrity of the visuals and the functionality of interactive elements.
Style guide
As part of the hand-off, we created a comprehensive website style guide to ensure consistency in AWU's branding across all digital platforms. The guide includes detailed specifications for typography, outlining the fonts, sizes, and spacing to be used throughout the site. It also covers UI elements and the colour palette, ensuring that the brand's visual identity remains strong and consistent in all future updates and iterations.
