Technology & Racial Justice Collaborative
[ Group Project ]
How might we design a visual identity system that speaks to the racial justice community's values?
Outcomes
- Developed a visual identity system for an organization serving over 200 audiences.
- Designed newsletter templates and created the first newsletter, which was successfully sent to over 100 recipients.
An co-create visual identity design project for the Technology & Racial Justice Collaborative (TRJC).
I worked with the Racial Justice and Tech Collaborative, a legal organization dedicated to justice policymaking in the U.S. I facilitated co-design sessions with stakeholders to gather feedback on platform concepts and visual identity, then refined the designs to better meet community needs.
CATA
Background
Research 1 - Moodboard
Research 2 - Group interview
Defined Key Insights
Created Branding design guide and Newsletter template
Background
The Technology & Racial Justice Collaborative (TRJC) is a community of over 200 researchers, organizers, policy advocates, and lawyers.
In this project, we are primarily working with Terrance Pitts, one of TRJC's organizers and a senior researcher from NYU Law. Terrance aims to build an online platform where experts and organizations can share their research and news. Additionally, TRJC needs a new visual identity system for their website and a newsletter template to engage their audience.
This project goes beyond branding—we also facilitate engaging discussions with partner organizations to foster collaboration.
Research 1 - Moodboard
Based on the documents and information Terrance provided, we created a mood board collecting images and logos that align with the organization's vision and values, as well as TRJC's key focus areas—technology, race, law, human rights, and more.
However, since Terrance represents the founders' perspective, we still questioned what potential users' perspectives on this mood board and their thoughts about the platform would be.
Therefore, we conducted two online interviews to understand their thoughts:
Research 2 - Group interview
With help from Terrance Pitts, we conducted several interviews with researchers and participants from different law organizations to understand their opinions about the visual identity and newsletter.
- Emile Ayoub (Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program)
- Don Bell (POGO)
- Myaisha Hayes (MediaJustice)
- Eric. C. Williams (Detroit Justice Center’s Economic Equity Practice)
- David Siffert (S.T.O.P.)
We asked participants to share their thoughts on each image in the mood board and explain why they liked or disliked them.
Defined Key Insights
Based on the interviews and feedback emails from other TRJC organizers, we developed insights and identified design directions.
1. We discovered a key difference in how we interpreted certain terms.
For instance, while we visualized technology through futuristic imagery like brain-computer interfaces with blue tones, our audience had different views.
One participant specifically cautioned against mixing human heads with technological elements, stressing that this imagery could be misleading and emphasizing the need to keep human and technological representations distinct.
2. We also received feedback from participants saying that it was tiring for them to learn a new platform. They expressed a hope that the platform could be built in a more familiar and easy-to-use way.
Created Branding design guide
and Newsletter template
Following our research, we developed TRJC's visual identity guidebook and successfully launched our first newsletter.
The primary logo serves as the cornerstone of the Technology and Racial Justice Collaborative brand, capturing and embodying its core essence. It offers a strong and consistent visual identity across all channels and platforms.
The first primary logo features a three-layered design centered around a bold red plus sign. The second variation showcases a four-layered square with a plus sign at its center, alongside the abbreviation "dot"—representing "collaborative"—which visually echoes the glowing dot seen in a camera recording.
Additionally, the frame surrounding the red elements is designed to resemble a recording frame, further reinforcing the Collaborative’s mission and vision of vigilance and collective action.
For the TRJC logo typography, we use Bayard by Vocal Type Co. Bayard is a distinctive sans-serif typeface inspired by the signage from the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, connecting our visual identity to a powerful history of social justice movements.