Penny Walker—a manifesto for making change
How do you design a meaningful website for a one-person consultancy?
Penny Walker facilitates change for sustainable development. She’s an independent consultant, facilitator, trainer, and author. She’s been active in her field for longer than the web’s been around—her work is widely published in print, and she writes a column for “the environmentalist”.
Penny asked us to design her website while repositioning her practice with a new visual identity. We convinced her that for the new identity to be credible, she needed a content strategy that incorporates web publishing.
User research informs content strategy
We carried out user research with Penny’s client base, finding out which aspects of her practice they found remarkable, and what content they felt only Penny could provide. Penny embraced the idea of crafting a content strategy based on this research. Marketing-style copy wasn’t appropriate: she couldn’t sound like a salesperson or a self-appointed “guru”. So the content had to be upfront, genuine, and open.
Create a manifesto, not a brochure
On the web, nobody wants to read your brochure. To earn people’s attention, you need a manifesto: a bold statement of your identity, your values, and why we should care. Penny’s manifesto is “Making change”, a set of four essays written collaboratively with Together London, incorporating specially commissioned illustrations. We also developed a content strategy for Penny’s blog, combining her existing offline publishing activity with new posts intended for an international audience.
In the words of a reader…
Check out this feedback from an associate of Penny’s:
I like very much how you’re finding a way to be interesting about both the wider issues and your particular work – and also sharing something of your personal struggles. It’s a rather inspiring, but very human, mixture…
And from Penny herself:
I’m more pleased than ever with the rigour which the team brought to the content strategy, how they helped me find my voice, and the way the design supports the intention of being open, approachable and fresh.
Credits
Design and illustration: David Caines.
Photography: Kalpesh Lathigra.
User research, content strategy, and editing: Matthew Grenier.
Web strategy, web development: Jonathan Kahn.