Niibi Center
The Client
Niibi Center
Who are they
In Anishinaabe tradition there is prophecy that foretold a place where “food grows on the water." When they found manoomin (wild rice) growing in the lakes and rivers, they knew they had found their home. The Niibi Center exists to preserve Anishinaabe trandions and provide education as well as water protection as a part of their sense or sacred connection and obligation to their history and culture.
Words First
Words lead to more sales. That's why we spend the time needed to get to know you and your ideal clients.
Problem
Non Profits intrinsically have a messaging conundrum: do they position themselves to speak to the people/mission they are serving or do they position themselves to speak to donors? Like most Non Profits, Niibi Center offers a diverse set of services which can make it hard to figure out the ONE THING to say (we often tell clients that if you try to say EVERYTHING, they will catch nothing).
Solution
We recommended that Niibi Center focus their messaging on their culture and their sacred connection to niibi (water) and manoomin (wild rice). The site was going to be built as an educational resource as well as an invitation for others to join them in their work. We created program-specific pages, an events page, and an interactive map to learn about Anishinaabe land and history.
Top-Tier Design
Good design supports good messaging and increases brand authority.
Driving Design Concept:
The Niibi Center is dedicated to supporting the traditions of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people. Because of their brand positioning, it was imperative that their new website was a true representation of their culture and values. To create trust and reliability, we wanted to make sure only authentic imagery was used throughout the site along with colors and patterns that are valued by the Native American people. To give visitors of the site an opportunity to learn more about Anishinaabe land, we also created an interactive map showing the treaty boundaries and cessions.
Click here to read some tips from our designer
Color & Fonts:
dm serif display
Heading / Normal
lato
Paragraph / Normal
Custom Graphics:
Words First
Words lead to more sales. That's why we spend the time needed to get to know you and your ideal clients.
Problem
Non Profits intrinsically have a messaging conundrum: do they position themselves to speak to the people/mission they are serving or do they position themselves to speak to donors? Like most Non Profits, Niibi Center offers a diverse set of services which can make it hard to figure out the ONE THING to say (we often tell clients that if you try to say EVERYTHING, they will catch nothing).
Solution
We recommended that Niibi Center focus their messaging on their culture and their sacred connection to niibi (water) and manoomin (wild rice). The site was going to be built as an educational resource as well as an invitation for others to join them in their work. We created program-specific pages, an events page, and an interactive map to learn about Anishinaabe land and history.
Top-Teir Design
Good design supports good messaging and increases brand authority.
Driving Design Concept:
The Niibi Center is dedicated to supporting the traditions of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) people. Because of their brand positioning, it was imperative that their new website was a true representation of their culture and values. To create trust and reliability, we wanted to make sure only authentic imagery was used throughout the site along with colors and patterns that are valued by the Native American people. To give visitors of the site an opportunity to learn more about Anishinaabe land, we also created an interactive map showing the treaty boundaries and cessions.
Click here to read some tips from our designer
Color & Fonts:
dm serif display
Heading / Normal
lato
Other Heading / Normal
Custom Graphics:
Our Building Process
01. Platform & Technology
We build our sites on WordPress using an intuitive and easy-to-manage page builder (Beaver Builder). We do this primarily because our clients want a website that is simple enough for them to manage on their own: add blog posts, swap out images, make copy changes.
02. Functionality
Most websites we make are what we call "Marketing Sites." They exist to guide a prospective client through the get-to-know-you phase and hand them off to your sales team. Marketing Sites are generally very simple and do not require much beyond a contact form and Active Campaign integration.
Niibi Center had a few special functionality elements:
- Using MapSVG plugin, we custom designed an interactive map of Minnesota/Wisconsin to teach people about the history of Anishinaabe land.
- We created a Custom Post Types for their programs as they wanted the ability to easily add new programs as they needed.
- They needed a good events plugin to manage their recurring and on-off events.
Some of the plugins we used:
Timeline
A standard website project takes between 11 and 16 weeks, depending on how responsive our clients are able to be when we need their input or feedback. Here are average timeframes:
Onboarding: 1 week
Messaging & Wireframes: 3 weeks
Design & Revisions: 3 weeks
Build: 3 weeks
Revisions: 4 weeks
Launch: 1 week
We had our kick-off call with Niibi Center in November and launched their site on Oct 27th the following year. This was one of the longest-running project we've done. Non-profits often have many hoops they need to jump through to launch.
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