Case Study
Coordinated Entry System
A Way Home Washington is a statewide movement to prevent and end youth and young adult homelessness. The Coordinated Entry System gives resources and direct help and assistance to those youth.
Scope: Re-design flowchart and give solid brand guidelines for future expansion.
Project Type: January to March 2021
Role: Lead UX Designer
Tools: Pen to Paper Sketches, Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign
A Way Home Washington, has a designated coordinated entry system that specifically targets homeless youth in Spokane WA and works directly with them and their community to get the help they need to start the process to get off the streets.
The main way they achieve this is with fliers that include a flowchart that walks teens through the process of getting to the help they might need as well as a list of resources they can contact.
A Way Home Washington reached out to me to redesign their flowchart as well as creating new branding for their coordinated entry system. As the target audience is homeless youth the primary goal was to create branding and subsequent materials with discretion in mind.
The branding for the Coordinated Entry System required a new typeface, logos, and color pallet. All of these items needed to reflect the overall goal of a brand that was inviting, calming, and full of structure.
As one of the main products to be used with this branding is a flowchart, the right typeface was vital for the overall design.
I chose a sans-serif type with a multitude of weights to allow not only flexibility but also readability. Being able to communicate the ideals of the brand was paramount.
Choosing the color pallet for the branding was something of great importance. By choosing colors that reflected the overall calm tone I wanted to project, I created a pallet that has great visual range without being overwhelming.
There is a primary pallet and a secondary pallet as the branding required room for expansion in areas such a social media.
Primary Logo
Secondary Logo
Icon
I ended up creating three different logos for the branding. A primary logo, a secondary logo, and finally an icon. This way the logos could be used on things like the flowchart as well as social media.
The goal of this project was to create a logo that encapsulates the feeling of safety and protection. The brand often described their target audience to be adrift and looking for a safe space.
The utilization of a paper boat leans into this feeling of nostalgia and childhood dreams, as well as showcasing a tangible example of being adrift.
The previous flowchart was not made by designers, but rather through Microsoft Word. The clients included all of the pertinent information but didn’t have any branding or design knowledge to build off of. This flowchart was full of multiple typefaces, colors, and forms of hierarchy. It was lacking any alignment or structure. And there was no consistency regarding branding.
While this looks good, it doesn’t conform to a strong hierarchy.
Strong Layout with clear directional flow
For the flowchart, I first needed to take all existing information and consolidate it into one simple layout. I created a portrait and landscape versions of the flowchart to determine which layout works the best.
The layout of the flowchart using a landscape design worked “okay”. But it left a lot to be desired. While all items fit onto the page, there were some areas that popped out to the side in quite a striking way. The section “That’s Great! Reach back out any time!” feels out of place and takes away from the overall hierarchy. Which was one of the problems I was tasked on fixing.
The portrait layout however, fit both on the space of the page as well as kept a structured hierarchy. There is a very clear start and end of the flowchart and clear flow to navigate all throughout the entire design.
In the end I opted to go with the portrait layout as the benefits over a landscape layout were very clear. With the addition of the resources on the flip side all that was left was to determine how this entire product could become discrete.
Once I had hammered down the design of the flowchart and resources I could then figure out just exactly this sheet of paper could be hidden away so that prying eyes could not view the contents.
As the resources only took up half of the space on the paper I could utilize the other half to create a folding system for privacy. There are two levels of discretion that users can achieve from this system.
The first is by following the dotted lines, users can create a small folded booklet that only shows the coordinated entry system logo. The majority of people will not know what this is or what it means. This allows for a level of safety for the user with the addition of knowing exactly what their folded paper means.
The second level of privacy is by folding their paper one step further they create a small booklet with no logo showing at all. This allows for no one to know what information is contained within. This paper can slide into a bag, wallet, or clothing pocket.
Taking the time to get out and connect with the target audience allows for out of the both thinking and designs. Designs that have both form and function.
