SafeFutures Youth Center is a South King County nonprofit that has been serving youth ages 12–24 since 1996 — providing mentorship, paid internships, tutoring, college prep, and life skills programming to over 135 young people annually across immigrant, refugee, and low-income communities of color. Despite nearly three decades of impact — a 97% high school graduation rate and 90% internship completion — the organization had no marketing materials, no exterior signage, no indoor wayfinding, and no consistent visual identity when I came on board.

I built their entire brand system from scratch. Starting with bold window decals that announce the organization from the street, I developed a full environmental design system including indoor room signs for every program space — each with its own color identity and tagline rooted in SFYC's values — a wayfinder sign system to guide first-time visitors through the building, a scalable program flyer template system, a donor-facing impact booklet, and an inspirational sticker collection featuring quotes from Black leaders, activists, and inventors distributed directly to youth.

Every design decision was made with one question in mind: what does a 14-year-old from this community feel when they walk through that door? The answer shaped everything — from the color palette to the copy to the physical placement of every sign. This project is the work I'm most proud of because it proves that great design isn't just for corporations. The organizations doing the most important work in our communities deserve a brand that matches their mission.