Revitalizing the Visual Identity and Website of a California Grassroots Organization Serving the Nail Salon Industry
Overview
Founded in 2005 by Asian Health Services, the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative (CHNSC) is a statewide grassroots organization that addresses health, environmental, reproductive justice, and other social issues faced by its low-income, female, Vietnamese immigrant and refugee workforce. Their vision is a world where nail salon workers and their families are healthy, safe, and thriving.
After developing a narrative strategy and messaging guide for CHNSC, reimagine collective partnered with CHNSC once again to update their branding and website at the end of 2023. Our goal was to design a more cohesive, dynamic brand identity, along with a more modern, impactful website that engages funders and serves as a critical resource for community members and students.
Our Approach
Branding
During the discovery and research phase, we met with key stakeholders from CHNSC to identify their primary goals and requirements. Through an iterative process that included open communication and regular design reviews, we worked closely with the CHNSC team to evolve their brand identity, including their logo, color palette, and typography. Rather than completely redesign the logo, we built upon its foundations so as to ensure brand recognition of the nearly twenty-year-old organization. We kept the brand’s primary red color, added more nail polish bottles, and updated the typography and design to become more modern, readable, and impactful.
CHNSC’s previous branding. The biggest challenge was redesigning the logo, which included the lengthy English name and its even longer Vietnamese translation. The varying font sizes and colors unintentionally resulted in “California Collaborative” being emphasized over “Healthy Nail Salon,” something we wanted to remedy in the redesign.
Early logo concepts
Final logo design
The new logo incorporates three bottles to represent the idea of a group or collaborative, emphasizing the community-centered nature of the organization. Condensing “California” to its abbreviation enabled us to maintain consistency in the font size of “CA Healthy Nail Salon,” resulting in a more balanced design that improves legibility and readability.
The color palette moves away from the bright pinks and harsh black, opting for a warm, earthy palette with muted pinks and browns, off-white, and a darker, contrasting burgundy. The new, versatile colors evoke different nail polish colors and can easily be applied across the organization’s website, social media, and branded merchandise, ensuring a consistent visual identity throughout multiple platforms and contexts.
Since CHNSC works primarily with the Vietnamese nail salon community, we chose the versatile, clean typeface Be Vietnam Pro, which is approachable, easy to read, and created by Vietnamese designers who understand the nuances of Vietnamese diacritics. It’s also readily available on Google Fonts and Canva for the CHNSC team’s convenience.
Website
After finalizing the branding at the end of January 2024, we began our work on the website, which hadn’t been updated in nearly eight years. The site was still using Squarespace 7.0, contained outdated information, and needed an upgrade to match CHNSC’s latest strategic plan and brand refresh. The CHNSC team also wanted their website to clearly educate supporters on their work, mission, and vision, as well as provide valuable resources for students and the Vietnamese nail salon community.
reimagine collective conducted a comprehensive website audit and produced a new site map with recommendations for a streamlined navigation and improved user experience based on data analytics and best practices. We collaborated with CHNSC’s Communications Coordinator, Nina Ho, to make strategic decisions around updated content, resulting in more condensed, consistent messaging and a mix of images that range from professional photos of nail salon workers and members to casual snapshots of staff and joyful, culturally relevant illustrations that reflect the organization’s grassroots, community-based spirit. The design embraces the new branding, using large, impactful headlines and alternating color blocks to showcase important content.
The responsive website was built in Squarespace 7.1, optimized for accessibility and organic SEO, and developed using a mix of Squarespace components and custom CSS for a more enhanced, seamless experience. Our team also implemented WeGlot, a simple translation plug-in that automatically translates each page but accepts manual edits on the backend — especially important for addressing more nuanced terms and complex topics in Vietnamese. Previously, the website had four separately built pages in Vietnamese that gained little to no traffic in the last year; WeGlot allows CHNSC to provide the full website in Vietnamese without having to manually create and manage extra pages.
Impact
Our visual refresh helped CHNSC display a more cohesive, dynamic, and appealing brand across multiple platforms, including their website, social media, email, and printed materials. Through the brand style guide we created, the CHNSC team can easily access assets (such as logos, color codes, and fonts) and train staff to adhere to consistent standards and usage for a stronger, more polished brand identity.
The new website successfully highlights CHNSC’s commitment to the nail salon industry, showcasing their history of work in policy advocacy, research, and organizing. Furthermore, the addition of new sections — such as dedicated pages for research reports, news, and other resources — is an opportunity to deepen engagement with both their core audience and new supporters.
We also provided Squarespace 7.1 training to CHNSC’s Communications lead so that they are empowered to manage the website post-launch.
“Kim communicated clearly, delivered tangible, fully explained, and aesthetic results, was patient and flexible with deadline changes, and kept us on track to launching on time. She brought all our ideas to life and created a website we can’t stop looking at again and again!”
– Nina Ho, Communications Coordinator at California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative
PARTNER
California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative
SERVICES
Brand Redesign
Website Redesign
Squarespace Training
YEAR
2024
