Youth Camps Communication Strategy
I am proud of this project because it was born out of the chaos of the pandemic in 2020! Youth leaders felt the panic, wondering if we’d have camps and wanted to offer this ray of hope and sunshine to kids who had been locked inside doing online school while still protecting them and their families. I was part of the brainstorming team that developed the solution to hold outdoor “festivals” with wristbands, temperature screening, and covid friendly workshops and games.
Over the course of three years, we went through three developing versions of camps and the website/branding. It beautifully blossomed into what you see here.
*The new owner may have made changes to this site, which don’t currently reflect my original design.
Translation Notes
Word Choice:
The site was built in Slovene. Some of the following screenshots have Google Translate turned on. This means that some translations in English might feel clunky or awkward to a Native English speaker, but rest assured, in the original Slovene, these words pack the heat.
Grammar:
In Slovene, it is proper to capitalize only the first letter of the first word in a title and to leave the rest lowercase. This can take some adjusting to and may seem like a typo at first glance! For example:
If the title was: “Looking for Something More.”
…with Slovene grammar rules, it would be: “Looking for something more.”
Again, there’s nothing quite like the adventure of grasping the brand, vision, and voice of a non-profit and unleashing its inspirational dreams onto the World Wide Web.
Not to mention trying to do that in a language you’re pretty much limited to ordering a coffee in.
☕️ Don’t worry, I had help. Thank you, Grega Vauhnik. But it did prove to be the ultimate challenge! 🧗♀️
Digital Strategy
Dam, R. F. (2024, March 1). The 5 Stages in the Design Thinking Process. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process
According to The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Standford, the five stages of design are as follows:
Stage 1: Understand and Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs
Stage 2: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems
Stage 3: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
Stage 4: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions
Stage 5: Test—Try Your Solutions Out
In this case, I used Donald Miller’s Building A StoryBrand to help understand and research our users’ needs, understand the problems they face, and dream about how our camps can genuinely offer them a solution. I focused the wording on meeting their deeper philosophical needs–belonging, acceptance, friendship, purpose, success, and safety.
Training Media Team & Camp Directors
I also trained young leaders in how to use the StoryBrand script for posting on social media and for when they talk about camps with others. Training included:
Reading the book, Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller and Group Discussion
Developing their own StoryBrand Script for camps
Discussing their StoryBrands
Helpful to them to have their ideas challenged and engaged and for the content to get deeper into their psyche and approach
Helpful to me to gain insight from young Slovene leaders in their perspectives on teens and parents and Slovene culture
I shaped the back-end setup for Camp Directors to help them manage signups and marketing through this approach
i.e. I created a universal sign-up form for all camps so that we could collect and analyze data on how they heard about camps, what motivated them to sign-up, what region they’re from, what their social media is and if they’d be willing to share it with us, join our mailing list, etc. so that our understanding moving forward could help us direct our energy toward the platforms of engagement that best support them.
I’m most proud of my UX/UI design, word-smithing, and Story Brand technique.
This was a cause I was truly passionate about and believed would impact our community for good!
a simple menu that includes our beliefs and the deeper philosophical desire to make a real and lasting difference in the world
not selling camp as an “activity” but something that meets a deeper need both for parents to have someone invest in their kids and for teens to feel supported, empathized with, and safe to be themselves.
Real photos / live action / authenticity
Not polished marketing –– iphone photos youth can relate with.
Live at: mladinskitabori.si
*Changes have been made to this site by the new owner and don’t currently reflect my original design.
I asked our amazing Graphic Design intern, Kallie Adent, to completely reimagine my original design. She captured the heart and essence of the Gen Z pastel vibes we were going for.
My original fluorescent electric design, inspired by video games and the metaverse (see at the very bottom), was geared more toward Middle School students, whom I’d mostly been working with at the time. However, our goal shifted with the site to reach teens who were still in the Gen Z demographic.
It’s important to note that, especially in Slovenia, the generational trends sometimes differ from what teens in the United States are generally drawn toward. They often take on more of a quieter European polished flair that still values minimalism and simplicity (in a way that feels similar to millennials). So, the American Gen Z/Gen Alpha that likes to make everything EXTRA, BIG, or uniquely FLASHY had to be tamed down to match the polish of a more Central European take. Kallie did an excellent job.
Based on our research:
Graphic Design / Branding Philosophy
I sought to shape our design around “What Gen Z Values”
What you believe - we commit to be transparent and authentic with our
Transparency
Embrace Personality
Create Entertainment not Marketing
Build Community
Gen Z is looking for authentic connections with people that align with their values. They are drawn to and deeply long for genuine relationships rather than mere transactions. They get enough of that online.
Their desire to engage in meaningful dialogue and to have their voices heard is crucial.
In this context, our initiative aimed to leverage our platform not just to market but to empower and to vulnerably come alongside with our very shared humanity. By incorporating dynamic language that reflects our commitment to authenticity and advocacy on their behalf and on behalf of others (Charity Water and Support for Ukraine), we sought to engage this Slovene generation in ways that deeply resonated with them. We emphasized empathy and shared values in order to build trust and foster connection.
Creating a space where Gen Z feels valued transforms mere consumers into engaged partners. And truly, that’s what our camps are about to their core, empowering young people to become all they were created to be! So this language was easy to generate, hopefully leaving them feeling seen, known, and invited into something for mutual flourishing and benefit.
I linked to our socials on the top, but linked to socials for each community below. This helped to work toward the idea of acting as a “hub” for multiple communities and also demonstrates unity and collaboration between each one, giving each one more credibility as well, as it’s “backed” by our site.
Socials
We use our platform as a hub to connect youth with real people in their region where they’d go to camp to experience authentic in-person relationships. Rather than channeling profiles toward us, we actually wanted to act as a bridge to channel users out to the people they’d likely be interacting with on a regional level, specifically at their camps.
To enhance connection, on the “for youth” page as well as on each individual camp page, we linked to profiles and posts from youth leaders with profiles (with their permission).
Rather than traditional tesimonials, I asked youth leaders if I could share their posts that they’d already shared on social media regarding camp. And then we asked some to write something specific for camp to share to our profiles as well. This continued to back our value of AUTHENTICITY.
My Original Design & Branding 2021-2023
