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After 3-1/2 years of design, content creation and development — with many stops and starts and long pauses along the way — the new UCLArts and Healing site went live yesterday, and we couldn’t be happier!

We worked closely with the energetic and forward-looking Founding Director Ping Ho, who helped start the UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), is co-developer of the program Beat the Odds: Social and Emotional Skill Building Delivered in a Framework of Drumming, and was the principal investigator of the study upon which that program was based. She was a great client — demanding, inquisitive, passionate, and open to new ideas at every turn.

UCLArts and Healing is a partnership between the Arts and Healing Initiative (a nonprofit organization), and the UCLA Collaborative Centers for Integrative Medicine. The site is intended to be a rich resource for educators, caregivers, psychotherapists, health professionals, and anyone else who is interested in using the arts as a vehicle for development, healing and growth.

We wanted to capture the energy, fun and uplifting sense of life associated with the arts — and especially with these programs — while retaining a sense of professionalism. To do that we balanced bold, playful shapes and colors with clean, well-organized typography. Differentiating UCLArts and Healing was a critical part of our design thinking. We wanted to give the organization its own authentic identity so when you arrived, you’d know it. And you’d be curious and want to know more.

Senior designer Kevin Consales and developer Chris Grau did an amazing job. Our clients, and their clients, are thrilled. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Here’s a quote from one of Ping’s latest emails:

Thanks, Josh, for your brilliance!!!  I think it will continue to blow people away and exactly meets the goals I set for the site. Thank you.

UCLArts and Healing is an organization with real vision and a powerful sense of purpose. We’re happy to have helped them further their good work.