Sentient Meat

Project details

Client
Sentient Meat

Role
Lead Creative Director & Product Designer

Technology
Webflow, HTML/CSS

Tools
Figma, Miro, Trello, Adobe Suite

Audience
Artist residents, workshop and event attendees, donors, volunteers, and board members

Collaboration
Board members, property owners, artist residents, volunteers, partners & event organizers

Colors section of the design system documentation

Before

Fragmented brand assets, inconsistent event pages, manual handoffs to developers, unclear consent/copyright process‍

After

Unified, dark-first visual system and an operational publishing workflow that routed content through consent checks, accessible templates, and componentized pages

The challenge

The design system defines tokens for brand colors, typography, spacing, and other guidelines like accessibility and component use

A lively, experimental arts collective with a decade of grassroots energy lacked a consistent, accessible digital identity. Multiple ad-hoc contributors and microsites, inconsistent imagery and copy, and manual content processes made it hard for the board and volunteers to publish event pages with consistent brand voice, maintain sponsorship info, and protect sensitive content under evolving legal constraints.

What I did

I led a holistic overhaul combining creative direction, UX design, frontend implementation, and legal/content review.

Work included

Full content & legal audit and rewrite to align on consent, permissions, and safer-space expectations (NDA / event consent processes integrated into publication workflow)
A complete branding refresh and photography brief to reflect the collective’s documentary/collage aesthetic while prioritizing consented portraits and accessibility
Creation of a production-ready design system (tokens for color, type, spacing; component library for nav, cards, forms, alerts) to act as a single source of truth for volunteers and vendors
- The system was intentionally dark-first, with high-contrast body copy and accessible color tokens (purples + teal as primary accents), rem-based spacing, and explicit accessibility rules (contrast guidance, keyboard-focus, reduced-motion preference)
- These guidelines were documented so board members and volunteer contributors could assemble pages consistently
Webflow implementation and an internal wiki that documented authorship, component usage, and publishing workflows so non-technical contributors could create compliant event pages without developer help
Ongoing mentoring and design-sprint workshops for resident artists to plan event landing pages, and learn UX skills like personas, and journey maps

Impact

Production efficiency

Reduced page design + publish time for events from “developer-dependent” to volunteer-driven templates — design-to-publish time cut from weeks to days.

Consistency

All event pages and social posts now use the same color, type and spacing tokens (single source of truth = fewer design regressions).

Accessibility

All new pages meet the design system’s WCAG guidance (contrast & keyboard focus rules) and provide visible keyboard focus and alt-text guidance (as specified in the design system).

Brand clarity

‍Clear visual language (color tokens, Ovo headings + Raleway body, rem spacing) improves perceived professionalism while preserving the collective’s experimental voice.

Engagement / fundraising

Time on page ↑ 22% for event detail pages with documentary-style photography
Donation conversion ↑ 11% using new Support page

Maintainability

New artist contributors onboarded in a single 30 minute walkthrough using the wiki and templates (onboarding time cut by ~75%).

Illustrated mascot from community event for promo