Schaffer&Combs (S&C) is a full-service organizational consultancy that helps purpose-driven companies and nonprofits accelerate their positive social and environmental impact. After updating their brand to truly communicate what their organization stands for, their team came to Media Cause to help translate this new identity into their website. They also wanted to reposition their offerings to better reflect their full-service positioning.
James Schaffer
As part of the earlier S&C’s rebrand, we repositioned their business model from functioning as two separate units—executive search and strategic consulting—to one holistic, full-service approach that better communicated their value to potential new clients. However, this shift required more than just updating their brand language and visual identity. The structure, user flow, content, design, functionality, and personality of their website would also need to be completely overhauled to support their new brand, and ensure that their internal passion and dedication matched their outward expression.
During the branding process, we had begun the work of reorganizing and renaming their services into groupings that would be both complementary, and additive, to each other as part of their new holistic approach. Together with keyword and SEO research, this formed the foundation for how we restructured their sitemap and navigation, taking into account users’ needs and behaviors when searching for specific information, allowing us to identify the content that needed to be updated, removed, or added.
With the information architecture and content strategy in place, we began exploring design and user experience. We already had a head start on defining styles and visual approaches as the new brand had already been revamped. This allowed us to shift our focus to identifying and customizing the best WordPress theme to meet Schaffer&Comb’s needs.
We began the website redesign by building out wireframes for key pages within S&C’s new visual identity. Next, we developed a new style tile that informed the look and feel of the site, more intentional typography, a brighter and more varied color palette, sophisticated iconography, and contemporary imagery that highlighted a diverse workplace, and incorporated them throughout the site.
Simultaneously, while we worked on the design, our team of copywriters began rewriting the existing website content to better portray S&C’s evolved personality and more clearly communicate their offerings. While some elements only needed small revisions, others needed more extensive updates. We redeveloped entire sections to more clearly highlight the interconnectedness of all of S&C’s services, while still communicating the value of each one on its own. Our copy team reframed what the organization offers into four primary service pillars—structure, strategy, talent, and operations. The goal was to allow users to immediately discover the information most relevant to them based on a specific need and then be encouraged to explore the site and the content further for a more holistic view.
The last phase of the website redesign was development—where all of the front-end design and content work come together. Our development team the structure, visuals, content, and functionality were coming together as outlined. One of the most important parts of development is third-party technical integrations. Our final stage of development was integrating S&C’s technical stack—including a jobs board and submission forms—seamlessly with their website.
Lastly, with every successful website launch, we thoroughly tested the finished site for Quality Assurance before launch.
