Location: New York, USA
Role: Freelance Product Designer
Team: Just Me ☺
Timeline: February-June 2025
The Brief
The Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) is a nonprofit organization that provides a variety of services and resources to LGBTQ+ Afro and Indo-Caribbean immigrants in the NYC metropolitan area. From food pantries, to support groups, voter education, financial relief, and more, CEP bridges the gap between the personal and the political. To celebrate the orgs 10 year anniversary and mark the beginning of a three year funding campaign to build NYC’s first Caribbean LGBTQ+ center, the board commissioned me to overhaul the CEP website.
Challenges
Nonexistent Brand Guidelines: With no formal brand identity in place, CEP’s original website lacked a cohesive look and feel. This made the project more challenging because I needed create a visual framework to use to as foundation for the UI design.
No Content Strategy: Originally designed and built in 2017, the CEP website was chock full of outdated content that needed to be restructured or removed all together. This negatively impacted the Information Architecture, resulting in way too many pages (over 100) and little organizational structure.
Objectives
Create a style guide that could be applied to the website as well as future marketing materials
Develop a sitemap in order to bring structure to the site, improve navigation, and eliminate duplicate and outdated content
Bring essential resources, such as the Emergency Relief Fund and LGBTQ+ Shelter Rights Guide to the forefront of the site to improve visibility and accessibility
Design a site that feels jovial, inviting, and celebratory
