Lawndale Christian Health Center
Lawndale Christian Health Center
Brand partnership with a Christian health center whose deep roots are bringing hope to a troubled community.
The Chicago community of North Lawndale sits just 5 miles due west of downtown but is worlds apart in many regards. A 2001 study found that over 70% of adult men had a criminal past. The area has suffered considerable economic decline since the 1950s and '60s when fear over black residents moving in contributed to massive "white flight." However, in the mid-1980s a small group of believers decided to open a small health clinic to begin meeting the needs of the community. Today, that clinic has expanded into 8 sites within the area that now provide over 160,000 medical visits each year.*
* Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Lawndale,_Chicago, https://lawndale.org/about/our-history
Brand Refresh
I began partnering with Lawndale Christian Health Center (LCHC) at a critical time in 2012 when the organization had just expanded into a brand new state-of-the-art facility on Ogden Ave. and was beginning to make more of a concerted effort to reach out to the community through other avenues: namely, a new fitness center and a fresh food café called Green Tomato Café.
LCHC had just rebranded with a local agency but found their budget drained and the quality of the work short of appearing professional. At that time, I was able to offer an assessment of their existing brand materials and provided services to refresh their suite of logos to anchor their new brand with bolder hues and better alignment and spacing within the brandmarks.
Brand Style Guides
Additionally, I created a series of comprehensive brand guides to help them better manage their brands in terms of future communications and design. Each guide outlined proper logo usage, brand colors & fonts, additional brand elements, and imagery specifications.
Selected spreads from Lawndale's brand style guides
Ministry & Program Marks
Beyond the three brands directly managed by LCHC, the organization is a collaborative part of a larger grouping of ministries and programs that all have root in the church that started it all in 1978. I worked to create new complimentary brands for each of these various arms of the Lawndale Christian family.
Street Banners
Creating a series of light pole banners with the new branding and vibrant photography that reflected the people of the neighborhood was one the first steps taken to boost Lawndale's brand recognition in the community that shared its name. In the years since, the street banners that have lined this busy section of Ogden Ave. have fueled a feeling of community pride and a spirit of positive renewal.
Health Center WEbsite
The old LCHC website was in dire need of an update and was suffering from an outdated, unresponsive design that was a headache to keep properly maintained. I worked with the Health Center team to construct a new site hierarchy and modern design that allowed visitors and patients to quickly access pertinent info such as clinic locations, choosing a provider, and what to bring to an appointment, all from their phones thanks to a new mobile-friendly design.
“Our organization’s website didn’t work the way we wanted it to – it wasn’t easy for staff to edit or for customers to navigate. Jeff started from the ground up and asked all the right questions. We gathered constructive feedback from every stakeholder on the existing site to determine what we wanted for the new site. Jeff listened masterfully and designed not only an attractive new skin (look/feel) of the website – but proved his skill in user interface design as well. He guided the design of the taxonomy, ensuring the site was attractive, easy-to-use and efficient. The right information surfaced for our end users with a minimal number of clicks. Jeff was a critical part of making our website redesign project a success.”
Email & Direct Mail
To help LCHC communicate more effectively to its patient base, I designed and built an email template for a monthly patient newsletter. To aid their end-of-year appeal to their donor base, I created a direct mail card that shared the Lawndale story and included a tear-off donation card and return envelope.
"This is Lawndale Health" Outdoor Campaign
Taking the title of the patient email, "This is Lawndale Health," I worked closely with staff and internal stakeholders to conceptualize an extensive outdoor banner campaign to further promote Lawndale's specialized care and health services to those passing by the clinic sites.
“Jeff was my trusted advisor for any number of marketing and/or design-related projects. He just had a knack for knowing what needed to be done.”
