How might we reimagine the brand strategy of the Mayor's Office of Employment Development in order to better serve Baltimore residents?
In 2020, the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) partnered with the Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) Center for Social Design to identify opportunities for the Office to best serve and support Baltimore residents through their job seeking and hiring journeys. Due the COVID-19 pandemic, MOED transitioned the majority of their services online. In this new remote context, MOED and MICA utilized human-centered design frameworks to identify ways to humanize the job seeking process.
Role | Design Researcher
Team | John Benton-Denny, Yael Bloom, Melissa Cano, Estela Duhart, Bryn Dunbar, Yueqi Liu, Becky Slogeris (Lead, Associate Director of the Center for Social Design)
Partner | City of Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED)
Guiding Questions
What is the current brand strategy of MOED?
What do Baltimore residents seek to accomplish when they connect with MOED?
What is MOED's current brand perception among Baltimore's residents?
How do Baltimore residents connect with MOED?
Design Principles
Create dignifying experiences
Acknowledge the reality of barriers
Be proactive, not reactive
Build trust and be empathetic
Place people at the core
| Our Process
For our research, our team interviewed nine Baltimore residents and surveyed 39 MOED staff members and 69 Baltimore job seekers. Our team also conducted market research to identify brand strategy approaches from analogous city employment services.
From these responses, we synthesized our data points, identifying themes, insights, and opportunities. We also developed personas based on recurring pain points and themes.
| Ideation
Our opportunities allowed us to facilitate ideation sessions with MOED staff members and Baltimore residents, asking questions such as:
How might we highlight the personal nature of MOED services?
How might we accommodate job seekers at every level of digital access?
How might we help MOED center dignity and compassion in the resources offered?
Examples of spectrum thinking exercise with sample word pairings
| Spectrums
Through our ideation workshops, we also worked with Baltimore residents to dig deeper into their perception of the MOED brand through a spectrum thinking exercise.
From this collaborative practice, our team was able to identify MOED’s current brand understanding in comparison to their target tone and appearance.
| Prototype
Following the ideation and spectrum thinking sessions, our design team created brand and service prototypes based on the collected feedback.
We identified a brand essence and hosted a final ideation session based on three branding options and nine digital and print engagement features.
The project is currently ongoing.
The draft MOED brand essence and feature mockup