All posts by topbean

Washington Farmland Trust works to promote healthy farms, climate resilience and land access across Washington state.  I have been fortunate to work alongside this organization for over ten years. In 2020, PCC Farmland Trust announced its new name, Washington Farmland Trust (WFT), a name chosen to better represent the statewide goals of the non profit. In addition to the new name, they introduced a new logo, tagline and visual brand.

They engaged a local design firm to lead the renaming and branding initiative and I throughout this process, I helped guide the design strategy. Once the logo and brand guide were complete, it was my job to apply this new look and feel to all creative assets including brochure, business cards and business stationary.

One of the big rebranding pieces was redesigning the website. Working with Carkeek Studios who handled the development, I designed the website architecture, UX and UI. The re-branding and functional requirements made for a fairly sophisticated site. Read more about requirements and features for this site below the live demo.

Interact and scroll with the live website below

Project Details

In my 10 years of partnering with the Trust, this would be my third time designing their website.  This site needed needed a refresh and it needed the new brand to be applied to the site wide look and feel. I wanted the design to be very clean with strong visuals to move the eye through pages. Pages feature big visuals to help make that instant emotional connection with the viewer. We use big blocks of color to help break up content. I created custom illustration to be used as infographics which help explain concepts. The illustration also adds more visual interest to pages.

Visit the website ›

Developed by: Carkeek Studios

Functional Requirements

  • Custom WordPress theme
  • Responsive web pages
  • Ecommerce/payment processing for single and recurring donations
  • Mailchimp newsletter sign-up
  • Custom map
  • Blog
  • Administration screens that allows for easy in-house updates

Custom illustration is used on the website, in email newsletters, on social posts, and sometimes on Miir tumblers. For the new brand rollout, I simplified the illustration so that it’s more a clean line art style.

Social media for WFT benefits from their rich collection of photography, but sometimes some overlaid text gives it the finishing touch. The new name announcement was slowly revealed on Instagram using a 9 image collection of images that collectively, when viewed as a grid spells out a larger message.
I created a similar in style logo for the Crop, which is the Trusts enewsletter. I designed a Mailchimp template that staff can use to create the monthly campaigns. You can see this featured newsletter in its entirety here.
Washington's National Park Fund Photo: Lee Scheinbeim

When your client is all about supporting Washington’s three largest National Parks, Mount Rainier, Olympic and North Cascades, the work is not only important, but deeply gratifying.

The invitation for the 2020 Spring Dinner and Auction introduces the visual theme for the event, inspired by the 650 year old Douglas Fir slab that’s on display at the Port Angles Visitors Center inside the Olympic National Park.
The 2020 Spring Dinner and Auction invitation’s roll-fold progression. Lifting the cover reveals the forest panel. The open invitation reveals 3 interior panels.

Below: Large signage, featuring brand colors, typography and illustration, help to direct guests.

When you begin a working relationship with a new client, it helps to inherit a strong brand, which I was fortunate to do when I started partnering with Washington’s National Parks Fund (WNPF). Part of my job was to implement their core brand attributes across all channels of design, marketing and communications for print and web.

Wish you were here! These fundraising letters don’t just look like postcards, they become self mailers thanks to a perforated edge. And each card has a unique Park fact on the mailing side. The bottom panel includes a donation form and is also designed to become its own separated panel which tucks nicely into a return envelope.

A pica makes compelling subject matter for a fundraising insert. Hip hip hooray! The 3 cheers for the park mailer combines new and old core brand illustration. The Parks Project booklet showcases one of WNPFs strongest brand assets. Landscape photography is a staple element for this client and has benefits of making the work easy and fun.

I love maps. I love their detail and their left brained, birds-eye approach to understanding massive landscapes. I love that they present routes heading off in every direction. With this in mind, maps (and more specifically, maps of Mount Rainier) seemed an appropriate visual inspiration for the 2019 Spring Dinner and Auction, themed ‘Personal Experiences.’

The partially opened invitation exposes a view of Mount Rainier with trails expanding up and over the landscape.

The 2019 Spring Dinner and Auction invitation cover establishes the visual theme of superimposing trail maps from Mount Rainier National Park over solid color backgrounds and photos. Event signage repeats this theme. The open invitation reveals a 3-panel interior.

I worked to expand WNPFs brand by concepting and executing multi-channel campaigns and designing campaigns specific elements, including logos and custom illustration, that would be applied to all outreach materials. Building off a solid foundation, the goal is never to replace brand but rather broaden it.

I designed these logos based on familiar brand elements. They are unique to the programs they represent but also share a strong visual resemblance to the master brand.

I designed an infographic for the strategic plan using fairly simple shapes that would allow for more text and visually focus content into 4 priority areas.