The Sierra Club
challenge
The Sierra Club is the country’s largest and most enduring environmental nonprofit. They’re powered by devoted grassroots chapters, and have built dynamic coalitions around issues of social justice and environmental equity.
But their brand story hadn’t evolved with their impact.
Or put more succinctly, they hadn’t explained what Black Lives Matter had to do with going on a hike.
Sierra Club website, circa September 2018
messaging
For years, the Sierra Club had emphasized issue-specific campaigns over a single emotional story about environmental activism. I led the cross-disciplinary creative team who helped translate their new brand strategy into copy and design for their major web properties.
In writing new homepage copy, I tried to merge their outdoors adventuring with their activist spirit, via the headline “Let’s get out there.”
Supporting copy makes the case for the earth as “our only home”, and connects their core areas of work to calls-to-action.
DESIGN
On every page, their photography and content emphasizes ‘people in places’ – the beautiful wallpaper-esque landscape shots now replaced with eye-level photography of dynamic groups in shared experience.
ACTION
Over the course of its long scroll, every page balances urgent actions with compelling invitations for local connection – with a freshness and vibrancy lacking in earlier incarnations of the site.
And on mobile, the responsive site maintains an action-oriented focus.
CREDITS
Produced by Blue State Digital for the Sierra Club.
Creative direction & copywriting: Chris Royalty
Design & art direction: Laura Kunkel
Design: Priyanka Batra, Andrea Falke, & Halina Mader
UX: Adam Little
Account and project management: Katie Wiley & Alyssa Waldheim
Web development: Lentie Ward & Taqwa Rushdan
