Website Redesign for Begin Anew
A long history with Begin Anew
Although photography has been the majority of my work since starting DoubleBee Photo, I also do art direction and design work as Zanimal Creative. I was fortunate to be able to redesign Begin Anew's Website in early 2023. I've been working with them for several years, since doing their initial brand development with BrandWise in 2015. When we built their original Website, we used the Squarespace platform for the user friendly content management system (CMS) and all the integrated tools that are included. It also eliminated the need for an outside developer which helped with the budget. Squarespace proved to be an effective tool for them over the years, and as we had hoped initially, allowed even entry-level team members to make updates to the site including adding pages, text, images and video content themselves.
Squarespace is even better now.
Squarespace has also been making improvements to their platform along the way and has developed a new 7.1 framework that allows more design flexibility. It includes a new grid based page layout option called Fluid Engine that allows you to place, size and layer elements using the adjustable grid and breaks free from the restrictive template format. It also includes an asset library and the ability to adjust mobile and desktop layouts independently. And it’s really user friendly. The new platform is an entirely new architecture and therefore requires a re-build from 7.0, but it’s worth it. It is so much better in terms of design capability now.
Strategic goals and tactics
After 7 years, it was time to move forward with a new Website design. In learning Begin Anew’s goals for the new site and reviewing references from many other regional and national non-profits, one thing became very clear in our meetings, we needed to focus on the emotion of the students and their families and recognize the donors, volunteers, strategic partners and team members that make Begin Anew’s mission of “Empowering individuals to overcome the obstacles caused by poverty by providing education, mentoring, and resources” come to life. We developed a creative strategy and used it as the basis for the Website design, navigation, copywriting and photography.
Tactical objectives included using more images and less text. We needed to show Begin Anew’s vision for the future, “Teaching one generation to change the next.” We expanded and updated banner ads throughout the site with the Vision message showing families of students and the pride on their faces. The banner ads were originally designed by one of Begin Anew’s board members and we all thought they were great and needed an expanded presence.
Copywriting and creative team
We needed to streamline the information and navigation and simplify the messaging for a multilingual audience. It was important to bring out the emotion in our copy as well as our photos. For this project I partnered with Michael Dukes, of BrandRecharging.com and Lee Lipscomb of Lee Lipscomb Designs. In addition to copywriting, Michael was able to offer some UX (User Experience) insights that really helped us streamline the flow of information through the website and develop a more efficient navigation structure that included a significant reduction in pages. Lee provided art direction support in collecting photo and design references and was instrumental in developing the look of our header images as well as the plan for future video stories. We shortened messages wherever we could and added emotional words to headlines and copy to show how welcoming and inclusive the programs are. We also emphasized that the education programs are absolutely FREE. We made the site multilingual too, with site-wide translations available in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and English to better serve the students. This is an integrated service from Weglot that can be directly connected through Squarespace.
Visit Begin Anew’s Website yourself
Here are a few screen shots of Begin Anew’s website, but please check it out for yourself. Begin Anew serves a diverse group of people throughout Middle Tennessee with three FREE education programs:
They also offer FREE children’s programming while the students attend class. If you’re looking for a non-profit to support either as a volunteer, donor or strategic partner, it is a great organization that makes a direct impact on people’s lives every day.
To learn more about the photography for Begin Anew’s Website, please read the Doublebee Photo blog post.
