For this year’s annual photography commission, The George Gund Foundation selected Deana Lawson to explore themes of maternal health and prenatal care in Cleveland. In response to the theme and subsequent portfolio, N+S designed an annual website that emphasized the key questions raised by the Foundation’s Executive Director David Abbott. At the center of this year’s design is an interactive particle world, which confronts viewers upon landing on the homepage. As you watch, the seemingly random movement of the particles across the frame become intentional—first forming the word hope, then disbanding and organizing again to form the word act. This custom built design evokes various motifs, leaving the ultimate meaning up to individual interrogation and interpretation.
The Work
Each year The George Gund Foundation commissions a photographer to highlight a theme within the Foundation’s giving for its annual report. In response to the theme and subsequent portfolio, N+S redesigns the Foundation’s website annually—a fresh approach to web design for nonprofits that’s yielded increased engagement online since the strategy was proposed in 2018.
For this year’s annual report, the Foundation looked to examine infant mortality and commissioned Deana Lawson to explore themes of maternal health and prenatal care in Cleveland. Deana’s resulting portfolio includes black-and-white and full color photographs of women, their children, and their families as well as service providers and healthcare professionals. The portfolio feels innately authentic, portraying intimate moments through both candid and posed images.
Our web design looked to incorporate these images alongside two powerful letters. The first was written by Executive Director David Abbott, which raised important questions about birth and the role of the community—questions which were expounded upon not only be the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests across the country. The second letter was written by Board Chair Catherine Gund, the first woman Chair of the Foundation. In it, she reflects on the legacy of the women who came before her, the changes they have enacted in their communities, and the pivotal roles they continue to play in today's battle against twin pandemics, COVID-19 and racism.
The Results
This year’s annual design was undeniably impacted by the shifting terrain of 2020. The theme expanded, taking on new questions of what it takes to decide to bring a child into the world amidst growing healthcare, economic, environmental, and political concerns.
The solution is relatively simple, and is centered on a particle world that immediately confronts viewers upon landing on the homepage. This space seems vacuous at first, with particles shifting across the frame seemingly at random. Within a few seconds of landing, however, the movement becomes intentional and the particles arrange themselves into a single word: hope.
The word is barely formed before it breaks apart again, back into randomness for a moment. Then, again, the particles pull together. This time, they form a new word: act.
The particle world was custom built to converge and diverge in this pattern. For some, it might evoke motifs of construction and destruction, of life and death, or of health and science. Our goal was only to present a moment of creation—one that is largely chaotic and ambiguous, and that allows for individual interpretation. There is no right way to read the moment or the myriad questions that arise from it.
For inquisitive users, you’ll find that mousing over the animation presents an opportunity for engagement. You can click within the particle world, directing the swirling elements where you like. Though the particles will follow you, they will always look to shift back into their pattern of construction—cycling through hope and act.
Moments of engagement and individualization are found in other elements of the web design as well. Lawson’s photographs shift beneath your mouse as you browse the homepage, inviting you to click. Doing so will open a viewer, allowing you to scroll through the entire portfolio. On subsequent pages, quotations from the Executive Director’s and Board Chair’s annual letters are pulled out at the top of the page and photographs from Lawson’s portfolio are displayed at the bottom of the page. Whenever you land on the page, a different quotation and photographs are presented—providing a unique experience that frames the content differently each time. The individuality of the design emphasizes and echoes the ambiguity of the particle world, asking each visitor to interrogate and interpret their experience independently.
Perhaps, despite this purposefully open-ended design solution, there is one universal reading presented by the Foundation this year: There is hope to be had, despite the chaos of the moment, and opportunity to shift that hope into action.
