It Gets Better Project is an LGBTQ+ youth advocacy organization that champions storytelling as the way to create a sense of community in the journey of exploring and embracing the LGBTQ+ identity. The project that they brought to our organization was to offer grants to LGBTQ+ students aged 8-18, for student-led projects that youth could introduce to their communities to benefit and empower LGBTQ+ in their schools and neighborhoods. Their central goal for the creative was to encourage youth to apply for these grants.
They came to us with brand guidelines that included fonts, colors, and some design element suggestions, and wanted us to work with that as a starting point to create a distinct brand into this specific campaign. We wanted to give it a look that would represent the It Gets Better Project brand but be even more engaging to their intended, primarily Gen Z LGBTQ+ audience. We added additional design elements, created a logo lockup for the campaign, and a delivered a full campaign brand guidelines to carry the look and feel throughout the creative materials. Then we went about creating a landing page that would offer unexpected, delightful elements and encourage LGBTQ+ youth to apply.
Webflow is a no-code platform that offers enhanced customization, including custom animations and interactions that designers can build without code. Because it is so customizable, it offers the potential to create something special for each project. We knew this landing page needed to be unique and current and maybe even a little bit trendy to connect with the Gen Z audience, so we were excited to create something a little outside-the-box with this platform.
We needed to create a landing page with a fair amount of content to 1) explain what the 50 Grants. 50 States. 5000 Voices. campaign was all about, 2) encourage the audience to apply and 3) explain what goes into a good entry, so they can produce a more successful application. Consolidating these pieces of content into a single landing page that holds a user's attention can be tricky. So we needed to be intentional about the flow and creating a seamless and engaging user experience. Luckily the It Gets Better Project's brand already had a host of bright brand colors in rotation, which we used boldly across the site to make the content pop and translate a brand personality that is inherently optimistic. We also utilized animated, grainy gradients, put the imagery in motion, and added fun scroll animations to keep the user scrolling through all the content. The resulting website was fun and fresh, generated over 48,000 site visits, and resulted in It Gets Better Project signing on with us for a full brand refresh and web redesign for their parent organization.
