Client
Frisco HIS is a non-profit support group for homeschool moms in the DFW area. The group was founded and is still operated by homeschooling mothers.
Mission Statement: “Frisco HIS aims to provide support to homeschooling mothers and help homeschool families have opportunities to become connected with other homeschooling families in our community.”
Introduction
When I came on board as a Graphic Designer and Communications Specialist, Frisco HIS had an old HTML-based website that no one really visited since they were using Big Tent to handle memberships, communication and field trip sign-ups. Both their website and logo was very dated and they did not have a clear brand identity.
Due to various reasons, Frisco HIS was seeing a drop in the number of members. The new president of the organization wanted to change the direction Frisco HIS was going to better reach the needs of Homeschooling Mothers. One of those steps was to move away from Big Tent since they were dropping some crucial services and members did not like the system. Registration for memberships was also complicated on Big Tent.
Using the original organization’s mission statement, I created the brand identity. From there I created new updated logo and website.
The Logo
In creating the logo, I drew upon the feelings of connection, support and love. Using those words, embrace came to be the focus of the design. After a few variations, the final design was an abstract figure whose arms were shaped as a heart. Inside the arms, was an heart. While Frisco HIS is a group that focuses on mothers, it was not limited to only mothers. Homeschooling fathers could also join and children also engaged in the activities and groups Frisco HIS supported. So the colors chosen were a little more gender neutral save for the reddish-pink heart. Purple is a cool color and provides some calming colors to the otherwise hot colors in the logo. It is also a gender neutral color that is a bit more feminine leaning. The softer orange gives warmth to the design and contrasts well against the reddish-pink and dark purple.
The Website
Since Frisco HIS operates entirely by volunteers, I needed to make a website that was easy to use for people without a lot of web experience. I decided to go with WordPress since it is one if the most popular blog sites and it had a variety of plugins that I could use to make the website operate the way they needed it. The website was created using a combination of a downloaded theme and custom HTML/CSS/PHP. It included forms for users to fill out if they were interested in joining Frisco HIS. Once approved they could pay for the yearly membership and would have access to the full website. The website allowed members to connect with each other, message each other, post to and join boards, sign-up and pay for field trips and more. The website was responsive, allowing users to access the website on a variety of different devices. It also had added security to prevent hacking and intrusions.
Aftermath
After the launch of the new brand and website, Frisco HIS saw an increase in membership (100% within the first 6 months). People moving from other states to the DFW area were able to locate the group and apply for membership prior to relocating. They also had several businesses reach out to provide discounted events, tickets and services. One of the people that reached out to Frisco HIS was the Boys and Girls Club and they wanted to offer their facilities to Frisco HIS free of charge.
Note: Before I left, Frisco HIS had grown so big that they out grew their shared hosting server (it started having issues due to traffic). They were uncertain they wanted to spend the money on a dedicated hosting service. Ultimately, the new Frisco HIS president decided to join hosting provider geared to homeschool groups. This hosting service would take take care of all their website needs but had very limited website customizations (you could add your own banners and change colors but the layout was fixed).