The Make it Happen Creative Residency
PROJECT OVERVIEW
We believe that the best communities are hyper collaborative and value different perspectives. This core philosophy of our business requires us to check any assumptions we have about the needs of a community, neighborhood, partner, or audience.
We push our clients to do the same, conducting intense research studies, surveys, and interviews in every area that we work in. This allows us to set an overall mission for our work, and a rigorous set of success metrics of how that mission will be actualized in engagement strategies, events, programs, and beyond. We have found this process to not only provide a better work product, but stronger bonds within the communities we’re operating within.
It has proven so valuable for our clients, that in 2022 we branched out into replicating this process for organizations through a “Make It Happen” creative residency. Each year since, we partner with a non-profit organization or small business that is looking to maximize their impact within their community. We offer a bank of agency time in addition to serving as a mentor, advocate, and ongoing resource beyond the annual residency.
FUTURE CHEFS
In 2022 we worked with Future Chefs, an out-of-school time youth development program that prepares young people for success after high school and a lifetime of economic security through training in the culinary arts and mentorship. After moving their facilities to a new neighborhood, Future Chefs sought to understand the best way to engage with their community. Through our creative residency, we presented a neighborhood scan, marketing material analysis, and a curated selection of event concepts to aid them in the next step of co-creating their new home with their community and engaging their audience.
Learn more about this work in our blog post:
Life Skills, Knife Skills: Lessons from the Future Chefs Kitchen.
YOUTH PRIDE RHODE ISLAND
In 2022 Youth Pride, Inc. (YPI) was also awarded time to work with the Design Department at Isenberg Projects. YPI is the only nonprofit exclusively serving LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 5 and 23 in the state of Rhode Island. While their website and marketing channels are home to a wealth of incredibly valuable stories and resources, their platform and visual identity had remained stagnant since the early 2010s. We were thrilled to collaborate and refresh the design of their brand to be more impactful, inclusive, and aesthetically pleasing. Pairing an updated identity suite with a new dynamic website, we created a toolkit of marketing materials that would resonate with their community while ushering them into the next decade of work.
YOUTHBUILD BOSTON
Our 2023 resident YouthBuild Boston (YBB) provides underserved young people with the support and credentials needed to successfully enter the construction and design industry. YBB was in need of a brand identity that was reflective of not only their history of working on Building sites across Boston, but also their current and future offerings across the fields of construction and design. To that end, our team led an in depth workshopping and research process, engaging students and staff in the YBB community to co-create a visual identity that would grow with the new era of the organization.