Greater Freedom Think Tank
Fellow: Gabriella Guzzardo
Team : Carsen Vespe, Lauren Ervin, Natalia Pereira, Fray Nunez, Julia Stokes, Tyler Goodwin
Community Partner
Greater Freedom Think Tank is a collective of incarcerated and unincarcerated educators and scholars who work to facilitate collaborative conversations inside and outside of the prison system. As the members explore the topic of liberation for all, their collective conversations are able to contribute to a more inclusive and reformative society, while fostering tight knit relationships and strengthening community. Working through these issues, the collective means to humanize the prison experience as they continue to work to abolish systems that prevent incarcerated individuals from coming home and/or struggling with the adjustment from incarceration to constant access freedom.
Design Question
The design question we focused on is how do we create an inclusive and educational website for Greater Freedom that encapsulates their mission of education through a transformational experience. One of the issues that are being addressed is the difficulty for users to navigate through the website. We also feel that it addresses the issues of not relaying their mission or creating awareness of their program. In doing this we need to consider that the mission we are relaying is done properly along with following their branding. When we do this the use of inclusive language to the program is also something that needs to be thought about as we create this website.
Strategic Thinking
In working with the Greater Freedom Think Tank, we began by comparing mentor accounts and websites with similar goals and a similar feel to what the Think Tank organization works to achieve. Through these various mentor accounts, we were able to analyze and compare what media was effective at engaging their audience while providing information about their organization’s mission. These accounts helped us to brainstorm ideas to create an effective and informative website for the Greater Freedom Think Tank. We also utilized author Simon Sinek’s idea of the “Golden Circle”, which is an organizational template used by many great leaders, inventors, and organizations that advocates for determining the ‘why’ behind an action or organization. The Golden Circle presents a method of communication that explores a key purpose, belief, and cause that are explored from the inside out. The why asks the deepest questions about why we do what we do, then moving to how we will do it, and finally what we will do. In completing our Golden Circle, we determined each level of the Greater Freedom Think Tank’s ‘why, how, and what’, all which helped to shape our design decisions moving forward. We were able to come up with various ideas and strategies that we presented frequently to our community partners through bi-weekly Zoom meetings, of which we took their feedback and adapted our strategy.
Co - Creation
When assigned the Greater Freedom Think Tank, our group got to work researching the organization as a whole. With this information, we hopped on our first meeting prepared with various questions regarding mission, audience, aesthetic, etc.. Through our virtual meetings we were able to get to know each other and their goals for the website. After the first meeting, we came to the next set of meetings prepared with materials, like graphics, website mockups, name ideas, to represent the team and figure out what they liked and disliked to help with the direction of the website. With this sort of trial and error method, we were able to collaborate on every idea regarding each aspect of the website. Using this trial and error method enabled our group to brainstorm various ideas which allowed for creative freedom on our end, as well as freedom for the Greater Freedom Think Tank to pick and choose what they felt was strongest. With their feedback we were able to fine tune our ideas to fit their liking the most and create finalized ideas that they loved.
Results
Based on our project's initial intent and aspirations, there were clearly multiple assets and achievements made. Through getting to know the group as a partnership, we achieved a relationship building process that has greatly aided our relationship with the community partner and resulted in the potential for more creation in the future with other groups through this class. Our work with Greater Freedom Think Tank resulted in the development of their own name, which they previously had not created before. This name building has allowed the Think Tank to brand themselves more clearly and our conversations as a group helped them to reach these steps as an organization. Through this process of creating a name, we also were able to develop a logo design that they were very happy with. Designing this logo was a collaborative effort as they would tell us exactly what they wanted and we would bring them designs that they could choose from. All of the designs that we made for them were directly based on their input in each meeting and our process was important in creating a mutually beneficial bond. Through our creation process of these logos we also developed a practical website design plan for the group and this website has the potential to be created by future group partnerships.
