Futures First: a brand, a website and a course platform for a youth organization

A growing organization, ready for a brand and a website of its own

My first work for Futures First was small: a landing page, social posts and event materials. As the organization grew, it needed more: a brand of its own, a website, and guidance on how all of it should fit together.

Futures First works with young people building their next step in education, work and life. It runs in six stages, from a first contact to alumni, across five areas: housing, work, education, mental health and life skills. It relies on mentors and volunteers to do it.

Until April 2026, its online home was a single welcome page. The new site had to show what Futures First does, who it is for, and how a young person, a mentor or a volunteer can take the first step.

The audience first, then the brand, then the site, the calendar and the courses

Since 2023 the work has grown one piece at a time: a flyer, event pages and a press release first, then the brand, the website, an events calendar and a course platform. Each piece was built to fit the ones before it.

1. 2023a flyer, event pages and a press release
2. August 2025Futures First Academy
3. May 2026a new website
4. September 2026A veterans page

Who it is for

I started with the people: young people in Long Beach looking for support, and the mentors and volunteers who give it, so the brand and the site would speak to them.

A brand of its own, North Star

The brand guidelines had to do two things at once. The logo and favicon stayed, so Futures First is still recognisable to everyone who knew it, and the Poppins typeface carried over. Everything else had to feel young. The idea became North Star: navigating your own universe.

The first direction was clean and bold: a space theme on black, with orange accents. The team wanted it to speak even more directly to young people in Long Beach, so the final version brings in a street style: graffiti orbits and stars with a Y2K feel, and a photo treatment to match, while keeping the modern icons from the first direction. Bringing many ideas into one brand that still holds together was the hardest part of the project, and the part I’m proudest of.

The same brand now runs through the event materials: tents, flags, tablecloths, bags, bottles, pens and merchandise. I also designed six pins, one for each of the six stages, from Exploration and Ignite to Launch, Lift, Orbit and Alumni, which young people receive as they move through it.

Branding services, planned with the website

A course platform

In August 2025, Futures First Academy opened; it now lives at academy.futuresfirst.org. Young people apply, and approved learners log in to follow video lessons and quizzes at their own pace, track their progress and earn a certificate. The courses cover public sector careers and entrepreneurship. I designed Futurepreneur myself: a full course in modules and lessons, from an entrepreneurial mindset and AI tools for everyday work to financial literacy, business planning and marketing.

A new website

I guided the website from the start: the domain name, the page structure and how to present the team’s material. Their documents taught me how the work really runs, and the site follows it. In May 2026 a new website replaced the one-page site, starting with a full home page. It explains the six stages and the five areas in plain words, and gives each audience its own way in: “Get Support” and “Explore Your Path” for young people, “Become a Mentor” for mentors, and “Become a Volunteer” for volunteers. I wrote the copy with the team, and still do.

The six stages carry through to the site too, each with its own icon in the same style as the pins.

The site has grown with the organization since. It now has pages for the Academy and its courses, for mentors and volunteers, and for Architects of Tomorrow, a youth advisory board that has a say over Futures First’s events, workshops and the website itself. A veterans page, added in September 2026, lists a monthly Saturday workshop series in Long Beach through March 2027. The workshops, each with its own registration, run from an events calendar built for the site.

The site was also checked by the people it is for: the team ran it past the young people they work with before it went live.

An events calendar, built for them

No existing plugin did what the team wanted, so I coded one from the example they sent: an events calendar in their design, where every community event links to its own registration page. Futures First adds events itself; the calendar keeps the page current.

From a single page to a way in for every audience

Ongoing: what’s being added now, and what comes next

Futures First keeps coming back with the next piece, and the site grows with it. What’s in the works now: more pages and new features for the website, and more courses for the academy, which the team is planning. Search is part of the scope too: the full Search and AI Visibility setup, to improve the site’s chances on Google and in AI answers when young people in Long Beach look for this kind of support, and when people look for a way to mentor or volunteer. The setup is the first step; the best results come from useful content on a steady rhythm and a review every quarter.

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