Design Lead
UX Case Study · Non-Profit · Philanthropic Initiative
Designing for
mission-critical
impact.
Brand identity and website built from scratch for PartnerOne Global Surgery, a pioneering philanthropic initiative training pediatric surgeons from developing countries to save children's lives.
Audiences served
3
Brand built from scratch
Team
0→1
1 designer, end-to-end
Project scope
Brand identity & logo
Built from scratch - colour, type, logo system
Website design
Full site from homepage to patnership pages
Information architecture
Structured for 3 distinct audience journeys
Visual design — hi-fi screens
High-fidelity screens for all key page types
Stakeholder alignment
PartnerOne leadership sign-off & direction
Fast delivery
Zero to live under tight timeline, solo designer
Challenge
One site. Three audiences. New brand.
Each audience had entirely different motivations, trust signals, and success criteria and none of them could be an afterthought.
Partner Hospitals
Leading North American teaching hospitals deciding whether to host POGS fellows. They needed evidence of programme rigour structure, accountability, and clinical standards before committing their resources.
Needs: Institutional credibility, programme clarity, clinical standards
Surgeons from Developing Countries
Pediatric surgeons evaluating whether to apply. They needed to understand exactly what they'd learn, how long it takes, what's expected of them, and most importantly that POGS was a legitimate opportunity worth leaving home for.
Needs: Programme detail, trust, a clear application path
Donors & Philanthropists
High-net-worth individuals and foundations deciding where to direct serious philanthropic capital. They needed both emotional conviction the human story and rational confidence that this model actually works and their money reaches those who need it.
Needs: Mission impact, proof of model, emotional resonance
Challenges & how I solved them
One site. Three audiences. New brand.
Challenge
01
POGS had no logo, no colours, no typography nothing. Every visual decision had to be made from first principles before a single page could be designed.
No brand, no starting point
Solution
01
Created the logo and colour palette from scratch. The identity needed to feel simultaneously medical (trustworthy), global (inclusive), and human (warm) every token was chosen with those three criteria in mind.
Built a complete identity system in Figma
Challenge
02
With no surgeons trained yet and no results to show, the design had to build trust from vision alone, giving hospitals and major donors a reason to believe before the work had even begun.
Zero credibility for a brand new org
Solution
02
The design borrowed institutional weight from PartnerOne's 20+ year legacy, making POGS feel credible and authoritative from day one.
Let PartnerOne's legacy carry the trust
Challenge
03
Hospitals, surgeons, and donors all land on the same homepage. Their reasons for being there and what they need to see next are completely different.
Three audiences, one site, conflicting journeys
Solution
03
Navigation was structured so each audience could immediately find their path, with dedicated pages and language tailored to hospitals, donors, and partners separately.
Audience-led IA with clear self-selection
Challenge
04
The mission centres on children with treatable conditions, but leaning too hard into that reality risks feeling manipulative a trap common in charity design.
Telling a human story without exploitation
Solution
04
The narrative reframed around the surgeons' skill and ambition, making it a story of empowerment rather than pity, which resonated far more naturally with a hospital audience.
Lead with surgeons, not suffering
Brand Identity
Designed from the ground up, with intention.
Before a single screen could be designed, POGS needed a voice, a visual identity, and a system that could hold it all together built entirely from scratch, with the mission as the only brief.
Design decisions behind the identity
The POGS mark, a figure with outstretched arms set within a globe communicates medicine, global reach, and human warmth in a single gesture.
Blue #26A7DF — Global trust The language of medicine and institutions, credible to hospitals and donors alike.
Green #61BF51 — Growth and health References medicine and expansion, surgical capacity built, lives saved, futures changed.
Pink #CE536D — Care and compassion A warm tone representing the children at the heart of the mission.
Orange #F7941D — The human element Warm and alive, representing the surgeon: capable, active, reaching.
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Website Design
From blank canvas to live site
Every screen was built from scratch from the homepage hero to the program pathways, donor pages, and hospital partnership sections with a consistent visual language that made POGS feel established, credible, and mission-driven before a single surgeon had been trained.
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Reflection
What I learnt
No existing brand. No visual language to borrow from. Just a mission serious enough that the design had to get it right the first time.
01
Starting from zero forces real design thinking
With no existing brand to borrow from, every decision had to be intentional and justifiable. Constraints create clarity. Building the identity from scratch meant I had to deeply understand the mission before I could design anything, the brief became the design system.
02
Multi-audience UX is an architecture problem first
Donors, hospitals, and surgeons all need different things from the same site. The solution wasn't three separate sites — it was a clear IA that lets each audience self-identify and move toward what's relevant without wading through content meant for others.
03
For serious missions, design credibility is the message
A polished, coherent, trustworthy website doesn't just look good for a new organisation asking hospitals and donors to take a chance, it IS the pitch. The design had to do the credibility work before anyone read a single word of copy.
04
Speed and quality aren't mutually exclusive with the right process
Getting live fast required making clear decisions early and not revisiting them. A strong brief, a defined visual system up front, and disciplined scope meant we shipped quickly without sacrificing the quality a mission like this demands.