Narrative

Brand Essence

In addition to a new brand identity, we wanted to help solve what was arguably the organization’s biggest problem: funding. Members of the renamed Society of Medicinal Discovery still had problems raising money for their research.

Pharmaceutical companies once invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into research and development departments for naturally-derived drugs. Now, these companies have cut those departments entirely in favor of drugs derived from synthetic compounds. This is due in large part to cheaper R&D costs, which lead to higher profit margins.

Consequently, pharmacognosists have had to move their research into university labs where they compete with other scientists for precious grants. With not enough funding to go around, many of these research projects never happen. This meant organisms were not being studied and discoveries were not being made.

During this project, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was at its worst. Most people, including ourselves, felt powerless as the death count continued to rise. Everyone was looking to the government for a cure, only to find that there wasn’t one that worked. It was at that point when we realized that if people had the ability to donate to research that could have prevented the Ebola outbreak, they would have.

This notion fueled the thinking behind creating a platform that allowed people to donate directly to research projects that were important to them. With crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and GoFundMe having such success, we knew that our own platform would work.

This platform, called EarthLab, would be directly sponsored by SMD and only be available to scientists who are studying naturally occurring organisms. This would ensure that awareness of the organization increased, but also that the projects that don’t have the backing of Big Pharma actually have a chance of being funded.

Documentation

• When users came to the site, I wanted them to immediately feel familiar with the site’s navigation and layout. This is why I decided to use layouts similar to what users are used to on sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe.
• In comparison to projects featured on the above sites, I felt EarthLab’s projects required more explanation for why the projects existed and needed to provide viewable data to validate that existence.
• Due to EarthLab’s projects being more altruistic and not offering a tangible product like other sites’ projects, offering “rewards” in exchange for donations didn’t feel appropriate. However, I did want donors to be honored for their contributions, which is why I chose to use  “commemorations” instead of “rewards.”

• EarthLab’s language also served as a way to distinguish it from the other crowdsourcing platforms. I wanted donors to feel empowered when they decided to support a project, which is why I decided to use “champions,” instead of less impactful words like “backer” or “supporter.”
• To support the goal of making EarthLab feel like a global platform, I included the flag of the country where the research project originates. This would indicate SMD’s commitment to collaboration regardless of nationality. It also serves as a way for the user to know if there might be barriers to collaboration due to different languages or cultural limitations.

• In order for users to immediately identify what stage of funding the projects were in, I used color as an indicator. Blue means the project has been successfully funded, yellow means funding is in progress, and green means the project was just launched.
• This color indicator, as well as other contextual information, is placed together in a header that becomes sticky when the user scrolls down the page. This ensures that the user will be able to see information about the project without having to scroll back to the top of the page.
• While investigating other crowdfunding projects, I saw that none of them offered the ability for users to volunteer if they weren’t able to donate money. I felt that a volunteer option would be appropriate for EarthLab projects because many who might not be able to donate would still be willing to donate their time and assistance if they believed in the project.