design

Logo & Event Branding

Advocacy Campaign Branding

Columbia University | Center for Educational Equity | DemocracyReady NY

Who: The DemocracyReady NY Coalition is a nonpartisan, multigenerational, statewide coalition committed to preparing all New York students for civic participation. Launched in 2018 by the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, DemocracyReady NY builds on decades of work securing students’ right to a meaningful education. In New York, this includes the right under the state constitution to be prepared for civic participation—a right affirmed in the landmark CFE v. State of New York case.

What: From 2022-2025, I served as the communications associate and designer at the Center for Educational Equity to implement the Center’s re-brand. I regularly formatted research reports, created data visualizations, illustrated advocacy campaigns and event visuals, and designed printed and digital assets for promotional materials.

How: DemocracyReady NY was a project of the Center for Educational Equity at Columbia University so I needed to design across three distinct and connected brands. Columbia and the Center’s branding had an research-centered academic feel, while DemocracyReady NY served as the public-facing advocacy arm. I reflected these differences in our tone and graphics for various audiences, while keeping consistency in the branding of related color palettes and typefaces. In 2025, DemocracyReady NY separated out from the college into it’s own nonprofit organization. I led the website transition and redesign, including reformatting the logo to separate out from the Center.

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) & Bronx School for Law Government & Justice

Who: The Center for Urban Pedagogy collaborates with community organizations, schools, visual designers, and artists to make information about public policies, processes, and systems, accessible.

What: The average ratio of bodegas to supermarkets across the Bronx is 17 to 1. It is as high as 37 to 1 in Belmont and East Tremont. These ratios reflect the borough’s inadequate access to fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant food. As a Teaching Artist with CUP, in the fall and winter of 2024 -2025, I collaborated with students from the Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice to investigate food insecurity in the Bronx. The class asked how government programs, social factors, and distribution systems shape people’s access to food.

How: To explore this question, students talked to community members, interviewed stakeholders working on the issue, and studied photography and multimedia collage.They gathered what they learned to create a booklet about food insecurity, food apartheid, and possible community-driven approaches to food justice in the Bronx.

Who: The Global Campaign for Education - US is a broad-based coalition of national and community-based organizations, international organizations, teacher unions, faith-based groups, and advocates dedicated to ensuring quality, inclusive, universal education for all children and youth. GCE-US is the US member of the Global Campaign for Education based in Johannesburg, South Africa, a global coalition with chapters in over 100 countries.

What: In 2025, GCE-US sought to redesign their outdated social media emblem and revamp their monthly newsletter. As a national member of a broader international organization, GCE-US follows the branding of the international secretariat. Their team wanted a design that was simple, clean and aligned with their global partners.

How: For the logo, I experimented with a range of symbols to reflect GCE-US’s educational rights focus, including the visual of a book angled to its side. The team selected a simple, colorful wordmark design that is easy to read, especially in small interfaces like social media. I created playful newsletter heading assets to match that have a school-like look and feel, with textured paper backgrounds and collage and sketched illustrations.

GCE-US

Design thinking process
Color Palette
In The Streets Logo
Color Variations

Who: In The Streets is a D.C. based nonprofit dedicated to interrupting patterns of generational trauma by 1. treating burnout and vicarious traumatization in service providers to amplify their capacity to care for traumatized communities, and 2. working with parents to prevent the passage of their trauma to their children.

What: In 2023, In the Streets adjusted their mission to meet the changing needs of the community they serve. Their shift to yoga, maternal care, and treating generational trauma called for a new logo and brand guidelines.

How: From the start, they knew they wanted a rainbow gradient and a yoga figure. To reflect their mission’s themes of “mental and physical wellness,” “care,” and “maternal health,” I selected a gradient color palette of cool blues with warm supporting tones to create a welcoming and calming feel. I provided palette options for In the Streets to create color affinity or contrast depending on their intended use. I experimented with sketching shapes and forms that connected the mother, child, and yoga figure. The new logo and brand guidelines aligns with their mission, and most importantly, better fits their community’s’ needs.