Brand revitalization for the Chicago Council

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs provides independent, non-partisan insight that influences the public discourse on critical issues.

The Council needed help with their brand, specifically their branded content—they also wanted help bring more people to Chicago to attend their events. We took them a different direction, we helped them bring Chicago to the world.

My role:
Creative direction
Primary UX/UI designer
Brand workshop & moodboards
UX workshop facilitation & interviews
Customer journey maps
Wireframes

Details:
2015 for Connective DX

Events are content, content is the brand

As Creative Director, I led the revitalization of their digital brand. Specifically, working with executives across their organization to conduct a series of workshops—brand discovery and design exploration—that helped articulate the organizational brand. This gave us a style and personality to anchor the effort of improving their story-telling framework.

Strategically, the biggest shift we guided them through was from event marketing to event-based digital content distribution. We turned live speaking events into portal accessible content. This allowed them to draw more people from around the world to events—in person and remote—while also giving them a digital distribution model for event content before, during, and after the actual event.

Story-telling platform

I led our design team through the creation of a design system, personas, wireframes, customer journey maps, key site flows, and the design of several responsive web sites as part of an all-encompassing effort to recreate the Chicago Council as digital-first. 

We developed a component library within the Content Management System (CMS) that would allow the Chicago Council to build long-form, narrative content around issues, topics and events. Setting them up for wider distribution of content, extended reach, and a more accessible global presence.