Spreading the joy of teaching and learning
Teaching Matters believes that an equitable education system is only possible when every student has access to excellent teaching. Currently, many students lack the support they need to advance grade levels, graduate, or feel engaged in school. Teaching Matters is addressing this gap by building teachers’ capacity and effectiveness while also helping them find joy in their work and transform their learning environments.
Challenge
For almost 30 years, Teaching Matters had worked exclusively within New York City, but its ambition was to expand nationally. The organization’s brand strategy, visual identity, and website were very localized to New York City, and we knew that wouldn’t resonate with more rural schools. Our challenge was to reposition the Teaching Matters brand both strategically and visually to scale into new regions and continue to achieve its mission of excellent teaching for every student.
Approach
As we worked with Teaching Matters on research and strategy, we focused on the core of their brand story—bringing joy, hope, and equity into the classroom. We needed to anchor on the outcomes of working with the organization rather than simply the reasons for their mission or the specifics of their work. These points together would create clear positioning and messaging that a growing group of audiences and coaches would quickly understand and see the value in.
The User Experience design of the website needed to create clarity and easy pathways to their services while also considering the needs of the sales and development teams. We simplified the navigation and created space for testimonials and stories to support the brand narrative, strategically placing calls-to-action in context throughout the website.
Our visual design team translated the brand strategy into a new brand identity that is engaging and exciting, and works to establish a new narrative about education equity and the opportunities teachers have to work with coaches to bring joy back into their classrooms.
Significance
The brand refresh and website redesign marked a significant transformation for Teaching Matters. Their previous brand identity was heavy, with darker colors throughout. Our approach emphasized joy, excitement, and vibrance—which better reflected the experience of working with the team at Teaching Matters.
TeachingMatters.org was a recipient of a 2023 W3 Silver Award for Websites in Education and a Silver Anthem Award in 2024.
My Role:
- Developed the project plan and our approach to research, strategy, messaging, and design, overseeing its implementation throughout the project and adjusting budget and scope accordingly.
- Conducted the brand and website assessment to create a baseline for our understanding of the client’s starting point and where we could go in the future.
- Conducted interviews, surveys, peer research, and led workshops to help us learn about the client’s audiences, goals, strengths, and values.
- Co-authored the Brand Strategy, positioning, and messaging platform, outlining the organization’s audiences, voice and tone, brand principles, experience, while also clarifying their work.
- Provided strategy and oversight during the development of the sitemap, information architecture, and user experience design phases.
Other Contributors:
- The agency’s design team created a new logo and visual identity system, as well as the visual design of the website.
- The agency’s engineering team developed the website on WordPress.
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