Earth Pledge is an advocate for sustainability with a difference. With initiatives ranging from green roof consulting and support for farmers’ markets to anaerobic waste conversion and sustainable fashion, the organization has eschewed the sentimental “trees and animals” identities of most green consultants, opting instead for a more scientific identity. To appear as pragmatic and rational as possible, Earth Pledge needed a Web site that appealed to users and responded to their needs in very practical ways.
As is the case with many such organizations, Earth Pledge’s communications had been created at the program level, so when displayed together, the differences between communications initiatives conveyed a disjointed sense of what the sustainability advocate was trying to achieve. It did not exactly communicate “focused idea factory.”
We needed to create a distinctive site that would compensate for the shortfalls in Earth Pledge’s disparate communications initiatives. The site had to be easy to use and maintain, with very few images and with a range of types of content. It also had to be able to grow as Earth Pledge would grow.
The information architecture created by Lippincott takes full advantage of the distinctive and very efficient initiative-based visual system we had previously developed for Earth Pledge. The new site accommodates a variety of content without ever appearing empty or over-full. We anticipated future additions and built the structure so the site can grow steadily without ever outgrowing its new design. The site has been named one of STEP Magazine’s “Best of the Web” for 2008.