People at a park with city infrastructure and tree line in the background.
The Imagine Cities logo, which features the silhouette of the Calgary Tower against sun rays.

Brand refresh • website redesign • qa

Imagine Cities

I collaborated with a talented team of designers and developers to refine Imagine Cities' visual identity and website to bolster their visibility, attract key stakeholders, and increase user engagement.

Tools:

  • Figma
  • Google Slides
  • Mailchimp
  • GitHub
  • Mural
  • Hotjar
  • Google Analytics

Role:

  • UI/UX Designer
  • Design Lead

Team:

  • Collaborating with 2 other Designers, 3 Developers, and the Founder

Timeline:

  • 2024 - 2025

Research & Ideation

Defining the Brand Refresh Scope

  • Website redesign, with revisions that conveyed meaningful change without a full overhaul.
  • Developed Version 2.0.0 & 2.0.1 of brand guidelines, introducing a new colour palette and font system.
  • Implemented some ‘future-ready’ features for long-term adaptability.

original guidelines

V 1.0.0

Imagine Cities' original brand guidelines - Colour Palette.Imagine Cities' original brand guidelines - Typography.Imagine Cities' original brand guidelines - Hero Colours.

Figma

V 2.0.0

Imagine Cities' first brand guidelines update - Colour Palette.Imagine Cities' first brand guidelines update - Our Font.Imagine Cities' first brand guidelines update - Colour Usage.

Google slides

V 2.0.1

Imagine Cities' second brand guidelines update - Colour Palette.Imagine Cities' second brand guidelines update - Font System.Imagine Cities' second brand guidelines update - Colour Usage.

PROTOTYPING

Redesign Highlights & Brand Alignment

The Homepage—Facilitating Easier and Faster User Exploration

  • The "Learn More" CTA now smoothly scrolls to a short description of Imagine Cities.
  • We also inputted an expanded section detailing each of the three digital tools, with the addition of an infinite carousel featuring the organization's partners.

Before

After

Original Imagine Cities' homepage.

After

Refreshed Imagine Cities' homepage.

Our Digital Tools Page—Visualizing the Mission

  • This page was added to provide deeper insights into Imagine Cities' digital tools.
  • I designed a simple GIF of the organization's Ecosystem of Adaptation, visually reiterating their mission and the critical roles each tool plays in achieving it.
Ecosystem of Adaptation GIF (Learn, Plan, Gather Resources, and Act).New Imagine Cities' page describing the use of the digital tools.

About Us Page—Consolidating History and Other Important Info

  • The organization's history, values, and volunteer opportunities are now presented holistically within a single, comprehensive About Us page.

Before

After

Original Imagine Cities' volunteer page.Original Imagine Cities' Join Our Community page.Original Imagine Cities' About Us page.
Original Imagine Cities' Our Board page.Original Imagine Cities' Support Us page.

After

Refreshed Imagine Cities' About Us page.

A Semi-New Newsletter—Updating Email Campaigns to Reflect Brand Refresh

  • Using Mailchimp, I applied the refreshed brand properties and leveraged their animated banner feature to add engaging visual interest.

responsive web design

Digital Tools at Any Scale

We worked collaboratively to ensure that the website is responsive across all screen sizes, and by extension, to any individuals in need of Imagine Cities’ online resources.

Search Engine

Aggregates useful articles tagged with relevant research categories under one platform.

Search Engine

Aggregates useful articles tagged with relevant research categories under one platform.

Learning Guides

A collection of internal and external resources for any skills and tools needed to enact social actions.

Learning Guides

A collection of internal and external resources for any skills and tools needed to enact social actions.

Creative Neighbourhood Lab

Connects individuals to various neighbourhood organizations or post-secondary institutions and their available projects.

Creative Neighbourhood Lab

Connects individuals to various neighbourhood organizations or post-secondary institutions and their available projects.

gathering user feedback

Quantifying Impact: 3 Months Pre- and Post-Launch

To quantify the impact of the website refresh on user engagement, I analyzed three months of pre- and post-launch data from Google Analytics (GA4) and Hotjar.

GA4 •Active Users

Increased by 31.6%

GA4 • New Users

Increased by 33.2%

GA4 • USer's Average Engagement Time

Increased by 52.2%

Hotjar • Average Session duration

Increased from 6:55 to 11:17

Hotjar • Average pages per Session

Increased from 3.5 to 4.5

Hotjar • bounce rate

Decreased from 48.7% to 40.3%

next steps

Future Outlook & Ongoing Initiatives

Continuous web-development refinements were managed through GitHub Issues throughout the brand refresh.

‍We also kicked off development of new features, including user-login capabilities for the website. Here’s a snapshot of the login functionality progress I contributed to:

View Other Designs