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UTOPIA Washington

At a glance

Type:
Nonprofit
Location:
Kent, WA
Launch Date:
July 6, 2021
Services:
  • Custom Website Design
  • Custom WordPress Features
  • Front-End Development
  • Information Architecture
  • Responsive Design
  • Training

Visit the UTOPIA Washington website

Screenshot of home page of UtopiaWA.org on a desktop computer
Screenshot of home page of UtopiaWA.org on a phone-size screen

UTOPIA Washington—formerly UTOPIA Seattle—roots their work in the cultural values of the people who lead the organization and the community they serve:

United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance (UTOPIA) is a queer and trans people of color-led, grassroots organization born out of the struggles, challenges, strength, and resilience of the Queer and Trans Pacific Islander (QTPI – “Q-T-pie”) community in South King County… UTOPIA has worked with QTPI leaders to create a safe, welcoming, supportive, and vibrant space for members of our community to address basic needs, build pathways toward new expanded career and life opportunities, foster a sense of common purpose, and advocate for social justice, education, and overall wellness among members of the Pacific Islander LGBTQI community.

About UTOPIA

They rapidly grew as an organization during the COVID-19 pandemic both in scope of services and number of people served. UTOPIA and MRW Web Design connected and started working together as they began a full visual rebranding and sought to stabilize their technology and website. All these initiatives were intended to serve as a solid foundation for future growth.

Planning a Website That Serves Visitors

To begin, we collaborated to clearly identify the audiences served by the UTOPIA website and the key information those visitors were seeking. After establishing those priorities, we designed a completely overhauled site structure requiring new writing for most web pages. All content was handled quickly by UTOPIA staff with this clear new vision for the site. The resulting menu structure and pages now specifically serve clear important needs of the people UTOPIA serve and help them connect with services, events, and community as quickly as possible.

Banner navigation for UtopiaWA.org. Home, Services, Events, Supporting UTOPIA, Blog, About. The "Services" submenu is Community & Cultural Organizing, Peer Support, Basic Needs, Healthy & Harm Reduction, Legal & Immigration

A Vibrant Design for a Vibrant Organization

UTOPIA’s new visual brand, designed by LLYP Studios, established a beautiful, unique, and culturally-rooted logo, colors, and design elements. The website was built upon that foundation, while applying best practices for website usability and accessibility.

The new design is immediately impactful and engaging but still provides a consistent and easy to use interface for website visitors. Using the WordPress editor’s blocks and block patterns features, the theme created for UTOPIA allowed website editors to select from a number of pre-built patterns appropriate for different types of information.

Building Internal Capacity

While UTOPIA had struggled to maintain previous websites, the new site was built together with staff who received WordPress training, support, and custom tools designed specifically to support their website content needs. Staff did incredible writing and website updating work to get the site ready for launch. Due to the training and practice, the website will be easier to manage and grow in the coming years with ongoing technical maintenance provided by MRW Web Design.