Design Trust for Public Space Overhaul
Following the success of Five Borough Farm: Seeding the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City (one of Design Trust’s pioneering initiatives), our team secured the bid to revamp the organization’s website and supporting suite of print collateral. We couldn’t be happier to see this project come about knowing that the Design Trust’s previous website dated back to 2006 and ran not on a CMS, but on blood, sweat and tears. KMIP to the rescue.
The resulting website solidifies Design Trust’s position as a leader in urban design, policy and urban planning, and serves as a comprehensive and effective resource for a diverse audience of followers – advancing design literacy, offering strategies and tools to enable others to effect positive change in their cities, and promoting best practices in urban design, planning and policy projects. It not only showcases the organization’s outstanding roster of initiatives, it sheds light on the Design Trust’s process, interdisciplinary methods of collaboration, and some of the key lessons learned along the way. As an organization working tirelessly to unlock the potential of New York City’s public spaces for all of its inhabitants, it was high time for the Design Trust to have a website that really did their work justice.
The team at Kiss Me I’m Polish is not only a joy to work with, they are incredible thinkers, designers, and collaborators. Each and every time they have gone above and beyond for us – bringing a level of thoughtfulness, intelligence, and passion that is simply extraordinary.
– Megan Canning, Former Deputy Director, Design Trust for Public Space
When the time came to apply the same rigor and vigor to the organization’s stationery system and print collateral, we followed a similar general approach as we did online – keep the core branding element (the Design Trust's iconic logotype) intact but make it come alive by making everything around it sing.
A breath of fresh air
Picking up the vibrant color palette from the newly-redesigned website breathed new life into the organization's print materials, while adding a rigorously dynamic compositional logic and big beautiful type sealed the deal. The consequent suite of collateral is bright, bold, spatially interesting and most of all highly-functional. Rolled out in advance of the Design Trust’s 20th anniversary celebration, each and every item in the system is a reminder of this major milestone for this majorly ground-breaking group of people.
And just for fun, below is a highlight of some of the other collateral we’ve had the chance to create for the Design Trust over the years. Seems our LOVE PUBLIC SPACE tote bag was a guest of honor at the launch of the May 2014 “The Energetic City” RFP – an open call for initiatives exploring new forms of connectivity in New York City’s public realm. This one’s definitely a favorite.
