Project Summary

Hawaiian language revitalization has been an active effort in Hawaiʻi for decades, yet the organizations driving it have long operated without purpose-built infrastructure; more than 40 years, in some cases. The Kuʻikahi Consortium, a newly formed coalition of five Hawaiian language organizations, needed to make a compelling case to the state legislature and other stakeholders for funding a new immersive education campus. However, they first needed to reach internal consensus on their own organizational relationships and values.

As the information design lead on this project, I developed the strategic communication materials that would be used to advocate for funding: a multi-iteration historical timeline visualizing decades of infrastructure gaps and planned building phases, value web diagrams facilitating the client group's own internal alignment, a step-by-step visual guide to a complex organizational framework, conceptual diagrams for their digital strategy, and a companion animated video. I navigated a multi-stakeholder client relationship across language barriers and shifting organizational priorities, adapting research and facilitation methods in real time.

The work had clear impact: it contributed directly to a successful funding outcome. The state legislature approved the next phase of the project: a set of temporary classroom structures serving as a proof-of-concept, marking the first time teaching models, process, and programming have been integrated into the existing campus. Following this work, the coalition also approved the development a fully-developed architectural prototype of the overall concept.

Design Problem

From the 19th to the mid–20th century, the Hawaiian culture and language entered into a period of severe decline. Since the 1970’s, critical efforts by a handful of organizations have resulted in a significant revival of Hawaiian language and culture. However, the percentage of native speakers in Hawaii remains under 0.1% of the statewide population, and the language is still officially classified as endangered.

The Kuʻikahi Consortium, a newly formed coalition of existing Hawaiian language organizations, sought to implement their vision of an immersive language education campus. Team members from the UHCDC developed a number of concepts for the proposed buildings on the campus, including a preschool, a research and curriculum development facility, and a graduate studies & outreach center.

With a proposal for the built environment in hand, the coalition faced a problem: funding still needed to be approved by the state legislature, in addition to securing the approval of other entities. How could they effectively communicate their need for new facilities to the state government? Additionally, how would they communicate the merits of the proposed campus and its numerous design details? The coalition would have to effectively convey that their planned programs exceeded the capabilities of their existing inadequate infrastructure, and that their proposed campus was part of a larger model of language revitalization on which other language movements could base their own efforts.

Navigating the Client Relationship

Distributed power and diverging goals

How do you interact with a client that is not just one organization, but five? How do you remain effective when a workshop switches between English and another language? During an in-person meeting with the leaders of the coalition, the session shifted from a designer-led presentation to an inter-client debate on their internal priorities and values. An additional challenge was following a conversation that shifted between Hawaiian and English. Flexibility, a willingness to work with incomplete knowledge, and a willingness to jump in while maintaining respect for cultural values were key to maintaining a productive session.

Clarifying relationships and value exchange

It became clear that the project couldn’t move forward until the client grouped reached a more solid consensus on their individual roles. Since they were composed of several organizationally-distinct yet closely-related entities, it was important to clarify the value exchange each group derived from its relationship with another. Following weeks of secondary research, I refined and re-developed a set of value web diagrams as a worksheet for the organizations to clarify the nature of their own relationships.

Supporting internal understanding

A framework had been previously developed for the client to use in clarifying their organizational structure and programming. I created a step-by-step guide to support the client’s understanding and use of this complex framework, which I walked through with the client group during our in-person meeting.

As the client’s digital strategy evolved, I worked in tandem with an animator to create a video guide of the development framework.

Impact

Following a presentation and meeting with the leaders of the nonprofit consortium and government bodies, funding for the next phase of the project was approved: a set of temporary classroom structures located on current nonprofit property, to function as a proof-of-concept. This is the first time that teaching models, process, and programming have been integrated into the physical site of the existing campus.

With funding secured, UHCDC is now in the process of developing a full scale architectural prototype of the overall concept.

Communicating organizational values through strategic visual design

Visualizing history to advocate for funding

Many of the coalition’s organizations had gone decades without a purpose-built structure to support their work—upwards of 40 years, in some instances. I developed this timeline to emphasize this prolonged lack of dedicated infrastructure as well as the proposed building phases.

The initial prototype was a linear diagram, suggesting a purely sequential narrative. I developed several prototypes to further emphasize the concurrent development of different phases, the evolving relationship between organizations and buildings, and distinguish between existing and planned work.

Prototypes are indeed never truly “final”. A month later, the clients’ needed a version that represented the narrative in a more linear and information-dense format, as a supporting element for structure renderings, while deprioritizing the aspect of concurrent development. I adapted an early sketch of the timeline into a condensed and easily scan-able linear format, emphasizing the progressive nature of each development phase.

Prototyping diagrams

The client needed a way to visually communicate their core organizational and cultural values. But how do you visually represent complex ideas like “language is closely linked to culture, reaching beyond academics”? I started by prototyping visual forms on a whiteboard.

Prototype visuals needed to adequately convey and relate to each organizational value, without becoming too visually complex. One pitfall was trying to communicate too much, resulting in visual incoherence; the other danger was over-simplicity, reducing the visual to an icon that did not convey the core idea at all.

Following weeks of secondary research into the coalition’s history and movement, I also authored written language that concisely conveyed their values.

Once visual forms were decided on, they were adapted to the client’s visual language, eventually being integrated into their digital presence.