Web Design, and Visual Identity Design for VAC

“Their knowledge, talent and creativity took our brief and delivered above and beyond what we imagined.”

VAC (Voluntary & Community) formerly known as ‘Voluntary Action Calderdale) is a charity that has been supporting, championing, and strengthening the positive impact of the Calderdale Voluntary and Community Sector on local lives and communities since 2000.

They develop and deliver needs-led services and projects aimed at improving local lives and communities. A strong, recognised name within the local VCS landscape, over the past 5 years VAC have expanded their services and operational support to different areas of the UK, including developing ‘Quality for Health & Wellbeing,’ a nationwide quality assurance system for groups and organisation delivering health and wellbeing services. When we first met with VAC, they explained how since they’ve expanded, they felt that their branding was the weakest part of their marketing and communication. They felt it was time to rebrand and create a new identity that better represents their services and brand values. They wanted to stand head and shoulders above other Voluntary Action organisations across Yorkshire and the UK.  

Industry:

Voluntary Sector

Location

Halifax, West Yorkshire

Website Design & Membership Portal

We met with VAC to discuss the design brief and clarify their objectives for the website design. Following the design brief, we reviewed VAC’s existing website. We concluded the existing site lacked high quality images and needed more brand elements to enhance the design and create a better and more engaging user experience. There was very little information on the website, and it was difficult to navigate. The site had multiple menus and lacked breadcrumbs or any way to journey back to your starting point, which often left visitors feeling lost and unable able to access the pages they were looking for. VAC asked us to analyse the current site map and suggest ways to simplify the navigation, combine pages together to slim down the number of pages and create a more user-friendly way for visitors to access information. They also wanted us to implement their new brand identity in creative ways, adding more brand elements to keep users engaged.

VAC are advocates for equality and inclusivity, so they explained that it was very important that their website was fully accessible. Some of their members have disabilities like visual impairment, so they wanted to make sure that the design we created for the website would include features that would help people with disabilities to use and navigate the site.

VAC wanted the website design to feature a new membership portal that they wanted to help them increase their membership. The portal will allow members to log-in to a gated section with access to content only available to members. They wanted the members portal to include features that would allow members to publish posts, access member-only pages with content restrictions for different membership levels, and access custom dashboards and account pages.

Brand Identity

VAC wanted us to create a new logo design and a new brand identity to help modernise their brand image and integrate their new name ‘Voluntary and Community.’ This included developing a new brand colour palette and brand assets. They wanted a brand design that was distinctive, modern, and eye-catching, something that will help them stand out within the voluntary sector not just in Calderdale, Yorkshire, and across the UK. Initially, VAC wanted to keep their existing green brand colours in the new logo as they had used it for so long and were concerned that existing members wouldn’t recognise them with a new colour base. However, they were happy for us to make other suggestions and to add additional secondary colours to their library.

VAC explained that they didn’t have any wider brand assets like icons, graphics, or a quality image library. They wanted us to develop a full brand identity package that included a range of brand elements, bespoke icons, and graphics, that they could use in promotions and communications across their print and digital marketing channels.

What We Did

Brand Identity Design:

We began our exploratory phase, reviewing other Voluntary Action websites across the country and analysing VAC’s current branding, to help identify problem points and areas where we could add value and enhance their brand identity.

We concluded that VAC’s branding lacked continuity and consistency across their online platforms, and that visually the brand presentation did not engage or have a strong enough impact to achieve the effect that VAC wanted.

We thought about VACs values, based on inclusivity, diversity, and equality, and how we could represent these values visually. We wanted the new logo design to reflect VACs core values and to have an influence on the development of the designs.

We experimented with shapes and adjustments, and soon settled on the idea of using three opened circles, each adjusted to spell out VAC. We created sketches of circles, adjusted and opened out, to represent community and inclusivity. We refined the circles further so they visually representing the letters V, A, and C as a sequence of three segmented circles. The open space made the circle resemble the letter ‘V,’ and, when rotated, would also be able to represent the letter ‘A’ and ‘C’ respectively.

Web Design:

We analysed VAC’s current site navigation and identified areas where we could consolidate pages and present information in more creative and engaging ways to break up text and allow for smoother navigation. 

We created a wireframe design of the website. This allowed us a clear overview of the navigation as a whole and showed how the branding designs are linked throughout the pages on the website.

These initial design stages enabled us to solidify the theme and revise elements like buttons, images, and layouts, before we committed to the development and build.

We used VAC’s colour scheme to create section differentiation throughout each page to group information and allow users to easily navigate between sections. We experimented with layout idea, and used colour in image overlays, text boxes and information sections. We added animated image slideshows with bold text and entrance animation to the hero headers on the home page, to create impact and page engagement, and we included a combination of text, bespoke icons, appropriate images, and buttons in the other page sections. 

We designed floating brand elements, including VAC brand icons and responsive shaped graphics that move in different directions as the user scrolls through the pages. We also arranged and animated text, images, and icons to guide the viewer to the information they are looking for while creating a dynamic feel.

For the membership portal, we created a log-in landing page and a member’s dashboard for members to use as their main landing base once they log in.

From their account dashboard, members can navigate the portal, access member-only content, and make changes to their account and profile. 

Ongoing Support

We provide VAC with web hosting and an ongoing web maintenance service to ensure their website performance and security is optimised. Through regular error checks and website updates, we minimise downtime, prevent malicious hacks, and ensure that the website is secure. VAC’s website is created through customising WordPress. This involves using certain plugins necessary for the site’s functionality. These plugins require regular monitoring for available updates. We monitor regular news reports about plugin vulnerabilities and manage updates to ensure compatibility and that the website never experiences fatal or critical errors or breaks in layout or design. As part of VAC’s web maintenance package, we also manage regular text and image changes, and adding additional pages or sections to their website. We also provide daily backups to give peace of mind that if any errors do occur, the site can be fully restored.

Testimonial

“Grinning Graphics has completely modernised our branding and website for our main charity (VAC) and our quality assurance standard, Quality 4 Health + Wellbeing. The whole experience with Grinning Graphics has been great; their knowledge, talent and creativity took our brief and delivered above and beyond what we imagined. The websites are not only visually engaging but so easy to run, edit and maintain as an admin. We have received so many compliments on our new websites and branding and that is largely thanks to Grinning Graphics!”

CVAC

Emma Worsley - Communications Manager

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