Rocketship is a non-profit network of public elementary charter schools. I joined Rocketship Public Schools as the Creative Manager in 2016 and was responsible for developing and building out their brand identity. This work included designing a fresh new style guide as well as a complete redesign of the website and creation of all their video and print materials.
Role: Art director
When I came to Rocketship, the style guide was in serious need of an upgrade. The color palette was dark and resulted in outdated and severe-looking branded collateral, which for an elementary school, was not the intended look and feel. I was tasked with coming up with a new, cheerier color scheme, as well as a system of typefaces and logos that could be used on the website and in print materials.
During my time at Rocketship, I art directed and produced over 18 videos, an example of which can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail below. You can view all videos by visiting this link.
Below are a few examples of print-related projects that I art directed and designed during my time at Rocketship.
The first is an illustrated children's book written in rhyming couplets, which I art directed. I also produced and directed a film for this project, which stars teachers, families, and students from our Rocketship community, reading the book aloud. We featured this project at our Ten Year Anniversary celebration and it was extremely well received with accolades coming in from as away as our partner schools in South Africa.
This second project is a copy of our annual Year in Review brochure which I art/project managed and designed.
One of the biggest complaints I heard about the old Rocketship website was that the navigation was confusing and easy to get lost in. We began the redesign by creating a site map which had significantly fewer pages and was simple, intuitive, and easy for any person visiting the site to navigate.
The Rocketship website had to serve the needs of three unique groups of stakeholders: families, teachers and funders. With this in mind, we optimized the wireframes to fit the needs of each of these user groups. We also created a duplicate version of the website for our Spanish-speaking families.
Since redesigning the website in November, 2017, and with the help of more effective marketing materials, we've had over a 600% increase in traffic to the site.
The website rebuild successfully addressed the needs of the communities that Rocketship served, as well as the staff and funders who come to the website for more information about who and what Rocketship is.
