Introduction
Helsinki Creators was a small local non-profit with the goal of guiding visual creators from diverse backgrounds to get employed in Finland. This is the story of my three-month internship with them and what we achieved during that time.
Timeline
November 2023 – January 2024
Platform
Responsive website, social media
My Title
Digital Design Trainee
My Role
I was in charge of all design projects from A to Z, which included the brand guideline, the website design, and social media posts. I answered to our team leader (Tareque) and marketing manager (Lidiia), whose contributions to the project’s overall presentation included the text and image content for all materials. I also collaborated with our developer (Grigorii) during the website’s construction and testing phases.
My secondary task was to write marketing copy for social media captions and a promotional email with the help of our marketing manager.
The Challenge
We had a workshop event coming up in two months. By that deadline we had to:
- Create a brand guideline so that all our materials would look cohesive and professional. Up to this point we had the logo, colors, and fonts picked out but they weren’t being followed very closely.
- Redesign the homepage of the website so that it clearly communicated what the organization offered. The old website was a good start but needed some refinement.
- Promote the event to our followers on Instagram and LinkedIn and our existing email list. We also needed a landing page for people to sign up to the event.
The old designs had inconsistencies in the use of colors, fonts, and compositions. The website content wasn’t enticing either.
Our Approach
Our target audience was immigrants to Finland with potential previous work experience in a creative field who were struggling to find employment in the capital region. They are non-native English speakers and might not speak Finnish at all, so we focused on writing the material in basic English and sympathizing with these experiences.
The StoryBrand framework by Donald Miller heavily influenced the structure of the website as well as the copy of all materials.
Design Process
1. Brand Guidelines
A previous designer had designed the brand identity (logo, typefaces, colors) of the organization. I was tasked with creating the brand guidelines which included finding a new font combination and setting rules on things like alignment and use of colors and logos.
View the new brand guidelines as a pdf here.
2. Website Design
Due to time constraints, once the brand guidelines were in place and we had defined our target audience and framework we jumped right into designing the website. I started with low fidelity wireframes on pen and paper and did the high fidelity designs in Figma.
Early ideations on pen and paper
In hindsight I think we should have invested more time into defining the specs of the website and making sure the whole team was on the same page before jumping into designing. A lot of valuable time was spent redesigning due to miscommunication within the team, and eventually the final result felt a bit incomplete. Regardless, the end result was a huge improvement to the old design.
Unfortunately I can’t provide a working URL for the website since Helsinki Creators has since February 2024 been on a break from operations.
3. Social Media Marketing Material
Since we were working on a tight schedule the social media designs were done very quickly in Canva, but closely adhering to the previously defined brand guidelines. The marketing copy was mainly written by our marketing manager with some help from me with formatting and hashtags.
Impact
Our December workshop exceeded expectations with 25 sign ups, 5 more than our initial goal. Additionally, we ended up having a full house with more people participating than had signed up on the website, which is remarkable since the organization’s previous events only had about a 50% participation rate. We received a lot of positive feedback from members as well.
Our workshop event saw a more than 100% participation rate.
Personal Takeaways
My time with Helsinki Creators was a great experience in honing my design skills in the “real world” and getting a peek into the fast-paced startup world. I find the fact that I got to dip my toes into marketing a bit with copywriting and social media design extremely valuable as well, and I definitely have become a better team player and creative thinker as a result of this internship.