ACLU of Florida

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) works daily in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend our individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all by the US Constitution. Chartered in 1965, the ACLU of Florida is committed to protecting, defending, strengthening, and promoting the constitutional rights and liberties of all people in Florida.

ACLU of Florida Issue Areas:
Immigrants’ Rights
Voting Rights
First Amendment
Reproductive Justice
LGBTQ+ Justice

My Role

Graphic Designer + Communications

I collaborate with each department (Communications, Legal, Policy and Advocacy, Finance, Field, Development, and Executives) to translate the organization’s work into visuals for our donors, digital and in-person audiences. In order to achieve this, I have developed the organization’s visual brand and designed a system for all of the accompanying assets. Additionally, I assist the Deputy Director and Director of Communications with Instagram planning and website strategy. I also work with the new LGBTQ+ Justice team as the Communications representative to maintain clear communication. Occasionally, I also have the opportunity to work with the National organization on digital materials.

Brand Development

01 Brand Audit

After joining my team and getting acquainted with the Florida staff, I met with several designers and communications team members from across affiliates to learn about how they have built a brand using the foundation that the National organization provided. I learned that the organization is a space of brand evolution and there is little from the original brand guidelines that is still in use. This created a challenging opportunity to create a brand system for our affiliate that will align with where I expect the national organization to go.

02 Brand Goals

My goals for the Florida affiliate brand are to engage our audience, educate on our work, and inspire confidence in the organization.

03 Brand Foundation

The ACLU has brand guidelines that the affiliates are currently only using for guidance on typefaces, colors, and logo use. I combined these with elements that I consistently see across affiliates to make a brand system for Florida.

04 Social Media System

Social media is where a large amount of our audience engages with the organization. I have worked with the Deputy Director of Communications to re-imagine our social content. Our goals were to create more clarity around the issue areas, their color codes, and the different “buckets” of content that we create. I have introduced templates for specific categories of content as well as a look and feel for our custom graphics to follow in the future.

05 Design Integration

While I have the most influence on our Instagram content, I have also worked with legal and other departments to create content for in-person events. This has included educational materials, SWAG and event graphics. I am currently auditing our website to allow us to have more consistency online as well.

06 Maintenance + Growth

My job is never done when a project is finalized. I am always reviewing our deliverables and how they perform, thinking about ways to improve next time.

Issue Areas

  • Immigrants' Rights

    Yellow is used as the color to indicate Immigrants’ Rights content.

  • Voting Rights

    The iconic ACLU blue is used to indicate Voting Rights content.

  • First Amendment

    We utilize the navy in our palette to indicate First Amendment related content.

  • Reproductive Justice

    We use the burgundy in our palette to represent Reproductive Justice.

  • LGBTQ+ Justice

    Purple is used to represent our LGBTQ+ Justice content.

Instagram Design

The ACLU of Florida works on several issues and we need to share various types of information with our audience. Below you can see several examples of posts that have been created over the past year. Categories of content include news templates, information templates, custom graphics, Twitter grabs, pull-quotes, and event promotion.

  • Custom Graphic Carousel - Slide 1

  • Custom Graphic Carouel - Slide 2

  • Custom Graphic

  • Bad News Carousel - Slide 1

  • Bad News Carousel - Slide 2

  • Bad News Carousel - Slide 3

  • Good News Carousel - Slide 1

  • Good News Carousel - Slide 2

  • Good News Carousel - Slide 3

  • Information Carousel - Slide 1

  • Information Carousel - Slide 2

Campaigns & Series

Give Miami Day 2023

  • Our goal for Give Miami Day was to raise funds for the organization.

  • Social content, website content, paid ads, motion graphics

Legislative Session 2024

  • Educate the public on legislate session and keep encourage participation.

  • Social content, website content, motion graphics

Black History Month 2024

  • To educate about Florida’s Black history and possibilities for the future. Each week of the month has a different topic that the content will focus on - highlighting the many intersections of Black history.

  • Social content, email graphics, website content, motion graphics

Paid Ads

The ACLU of Florida runs paid ads on various issues and topics. This is an example of an ad suite that I designed for our Give Miami Day 2023 campaign. These ads were targeted to South Florida to encourage donations and participation leading up to and on giving day.

Additional Social Media Platforms

The digital communications team consists of the Deputy Director of Digital Communications, Digital Strategist, Graphic Designer, and Digital Storyteller. The four of us, strategize for the content across platforms. While I focus on Instagram, I work with the rest of the team to create consistency across all platforms - Instagram, Tik Tok, X (Twitter), Threads.

Promotional Materials

  • Shirt Design

    I have created various shirt designs for staff and our audience.

  • Sticker Design

    I have designed stickers for our Field team to hand out at our in-person events.

  • Print Materials

    Our legal and field teams provide various educational materials for our followers at in-person events.

Website Development

The ACLU of Florida website is built using a site builder provided by the national organization. I am working with my team to optimize the site and ways to present content. This is a new effort that I am actively working on and strategizing for with the Deputy Director and Digital Strategist.

Grant + Donor Content

The ACLU is funded entirely with private donations, foundation grants, court-awarded legal fees and membership dues. They do not receive any government funding.

I have started working with the Senior Grant Writer & Administrator to create templates for important grant documents and presentations. These materials are used in applications, report-outs, and internal organization.