bellevue schools foundation — From the Designer's Desk

This week has been full of design with a purpose. As much as I adore working with houses, working with kids is even better! The mission of the Bellevue Schools Foundation is to transform education and support students and families in the Bellevue School District. The Foundation fosters innovation to help our students achieve the best possible educational outcomes.

With COVID keeping most of the schools closed, the Bellevue Schools Foundation has had to revamp the way that they do business. We partnered to put together a packet for new board members so that everyone could feel connected when meeting on Zoom. We started with a half-size magazine and eventually moved to full size pages. We created fun coffee mugs and homemade cookies to be delivered to each board member during the week.

If you have been considering donating to a local not-for-profit, I can confidently recommend the Bellevue School Foundation.

DONATE to the Bellevue Schools Foundation

Bellevue Schools Foundation Ad - July 2020.jpg

Working on an ad this week for the Bellevue Schools Foundation and I have had an absolute blast puttering through Adobe’s stock photography to find photos of beautiful children. It was important to me that this project feature children from across the melanin rainbow, both because the program works with a diverse group of children and due to the current moment in the BLM movement I’ve been more acutely aware of accurately representing the diversity of the programs.

In my searching, I found that POC and Black children are not represented as often even in our stock photography. I’ve even found it difficult to find senior photos of the rainbow that our world is simply stuffed with, which gets me percolating again about the things that bring us together and keep us apart.

Something to consider with every project is both our own biases as well as the potential biases of the company or project owners. And as in life, design should strive to be inclusive.