01/ Lifelong Skills Training Inc



UX/UI (Web Design)  Adobe CS & Wordpress  Design Research  Branding  Editing (Premiere-Pro)  Project Management



Providing sustainable post-secondary educational resources for special-needs students in Bridgetown, Barbados.

About
Lifelong Skills Training Inc work to create sustainable post-secondary educational resources to students with disabilities in Bridgetown, Barbados. Through four major educational programs (Vocational Training, Creative Learning, Developmental teaching and Skills training), education is tailored to each individual student’s need.

When we started working with Lifelong, they had no digital presence outside of one inactive Facebook page. In order to help launch a new mini-mart coming in March 2024 (Lifelong Marketplace), we needed to build an entire digital media campaign for interested individuals to learn more about the organization. We had an in-person trip to Barbados scheduled for January of 2024, however, as Project Manager, I led work assignments in preparation for the trip beginning October 2023. It was clear from my initial conversations with the client that the website needed to be clear, easy to use and express joy. We needed our media and content to guide users how to engage with Lifelong, whether that be donating to their new initiatives, or volunteering.

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01/ Site Map
Before landing in Barbados, we had limited information from our client to work with. Generally, we knew a few pieces of information:

1. The website needs to reflect joy and highlight Lifelong’s major educational programs. 
   
2. The website needs to direct possibly supporters or donors to spaces where they can help.
   
3. The website needs to direct community members to places they can contact and/or sign up for the programs on offer.
   
4. The website is a space to advertise the new mini-mart, opening March 2024.
   
   

In order to streamline our process with narrowing down a site-map with the client, we went into our first meeting with a drafted version (see below):

 



In order to streamline our process with narrowing down a site-map with the client, we went into our first meeting with a drafted version (see below):

Feedback on this initial site-map included

1. Changing the names of the educational programs (for accuracy sake)
   
2. Coming up for a name for the mini-mart (now “Marketplace”)
   

Next we came up with a basic placeholder-style prototype of the site. I wrote all the copy for the site, meaning I had a lot of control over the initial prototype framing and how the different pieces of information would be displayed. This initial mock-up makes sure we have space to accommodate information while leaving space for later brand and design elements.

All work is drafted up using figma. If you’d like to see the whole work, click here to see the entire PDF.

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02/ Brand Identity & Prototype Once we’d settled our wireframe, next was to work on a basic brand look-book and subsequent high(er) fidelity working prototype. These were the parameters we were working within:

1. An already exisitng logo that the organization did not want to change.
   
2. The company needed a new brand identity of colors and typeface inspired by the logo to carry across the site and social media. 
3. The logo was hard to work with due to the colors and irregular fonts. Despite this, we worked to create a color scheme which had some of these colors in mind, while reflecting the nature elements of Lifelong’s symbol of the tree. Our typeface choice (Lato), encapsulated the simplicity and ease of use we felt was necessary for the site and social media.

After finalizing our color scheme & typeface, we expanded our wireframe into color and placed our photography in the placeholders. Like our frist prototype, all of this was formulated using Figma.

   

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03/ WebsiteWe built the website on Wordpress Elementor. By using Elementor, the client would be able to edit and change the site easily once we finished the project. Using this tool was about sustainability for the company’s use, but had enough flexibility to follow our designs drafted on Figma.


 

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05/ Social Design We created a huge book of social media and photography for the organization to use (for at least a year in advanc)e. The social design adheres to the natural themes, and concepts of growth we developed in our branding process. We were encouraged to create posts which expressed the joy of the organization while promoting donations.