Rise in STEM
Brand & Website Redesign
About The Project
Rise in STEM is a Toronto-based grassroots organization supporting Black and underserved youth in STEM. The project focused on refreshing the brand and redesigning the website to create a more dynamic, youthful and accessible digital experience.
My Role
I worked as an independent design consultant and handled the whole project: visual identity, UX, content, information architecture, and the build in Squarespace.
Brand Refinement
Keeping what people already recognize
Rise in STEM already had a brand worth keeping, so I didn’t start over. I refined the typography, icons and photo treatment to make the identity feel more flexible, cohesive and contemporary, while keeping it familiar to the people who already know the organization.
For the colour palette, I wanted to reflect the energy of the youth at the heart of Rise in STEM. I introduced brighter, more vibrant colours while ensuring buttons and key actions had strong contrast and were easy to identify.
Website Redesign
Transforming an existing platform into a more intentional digital experience.
I helped Rise in STEM restructure the site's navigation and create new content so students, partners, and donors can quickly understand the work and find what's relevant to them. The programs and ways to get involved are now clearly highlighted, with a clear next step on every page.
Working within Rise in STEM’s existing Squarespace website, I redesigned the homepage and key pages to improve consistency, readability, accessibility and visual impact.
The new experience brings together the refreshed brand, clearer content hierarchy and more intentional user journeys while remaining easy for the team to manage.
Resource Hub
Built to grow with the team
Rise in STEM's resources needed to live directly on their website, with a way for visitors to find what's relevant to them. I coded a custom filtering system in Squarespace that lets people sort resources by stage of their journey, topic, or content type.
I set up the back end so the team can add and update resources on their own, without rebuilding anything as the library grows.