LIPPINCOTT
“Earth Pledge is a nonprofit organization at the forefront of developing innovative, scientific approaches to solving environmental issues,” explains Lippincott art director Jenifer Lehker. Unfortunately, a variety of organizations have been employing Earth Pledge’s terminology without crediting the source, thus contributing to weakened impact and fuzziness in the public’s mind. “The overarching Earth Pledge brand was becoming diluted,” Lehker explains. “This was making it hard to raise money, because people didn’t know who was behind these great initiatives. We started out by helping [Earth Pledge] articulate a creative strategy and visual system that presented it as a unified organization, while letting each of its six programs have its own look.”

In updating the organization’s website, several goals had to be met: Earth Pledge had to stand out among the ubiquitous leafy green visuals of other environmental organizations; its scientific approach to problem solving needed emphasis; visuals and user interface had to appeal to professional corporations and organizations that are clients; and Earth Pledge staff had to be able to update content regularly. By playing with the initial letters of the various initiatives, the creative team hit on an idea that served as an organizing principle … and also helped communicate core brand values. “The moment we came up with the idea of a periodic table, I knew we nailed it,” Lehker recalls.

Each program has its own associated acronym, color and pattern. For example, Waste to Fuel, or W=F, features spark clusters; Farm to Table, or F2T, uses an intertwined leaf pattern. Other elements of the site design are a strong color palette and a grid layout. “Earth Pledge uses brand colors of green and brown,” Lehker explains. “Then, when you go to the initiatives, the pages are white and clean, so [the appearance is] dramatically different and lets them shine, but there is still branding in the corner.” Even without going to interior pages, a user can roll over any of the program names on the home page, and a small cheat sheet with explanatory information pops up while the rest of the page fades back. “We wanted to have an engaging element on the home page but didn’t have the budget for things like Flash. This is an easy way to build in interactivity and also just get a highlight of the program,” Lehker notes. “We broke the mold a bit by deviating from the standard web page layout, and learned that we could tell the whole story on the home page without having to clutter it with content or copy.” This pared-down directness is also reflective of the client’s frugal nature. “It wasn’t just that they didn’t have a lot of money to spend,” Lehker explains. “As a responsible nonprofit, they want as much of their resources as possible to go towards programs. So budget did drive some decisions, but we mostly used it as a spur to creativity.” Laurel Saville

LIPPINCOTT | CREATIVE DIRECTOR: CONNIE BIRDSALL | ART DIRECTOR: JENIFER LEHKER | DESIGNERS: JENIFER LEHKER, LAURA CRESCENTI INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE: ELIOT PHILLIPS, MATT DUBEAU | CLIENT: EARTH PLEDGE | WWW.LIPPINCOTT.COM