Land Conflict Watch
Building a comprehensive database of land conflicts in India
CLIENT
Nut Graph LLP
YEAR
2019
SERVICES
Branding
UI/UX Design
Webflow Development
Land Conflict Watch is an award-winning data-journalism project that reports, maps, and analyses ongoing land conflicts in India. They are a network of researchers and journalists spread across the country, who combine academic rigour with journalistic approach to collect data that answers questions about land conflicts and their impact on the environment,industrial investments and lives of the affected communities. The organisation is redefining the context of industrial development in India, and how it affects marginalised communities. By analysing trends in land conflicts, they help researchers, organisations and policy makers to drive better policy design that benefits these communities.
I worked with the LCW team to redesign the website, establish brand guidelines, and create a user-friendly database for their research team to collect, analyse and publish the data.
Project Goals
How do we bring land conflict reporting into mainstream media?
Since its inception in 2016, the Land Conflict Watch team has grown to over 40 active researchers who have collectively reported over 700 land conflicts. Unfortunately, the old website did not grow with them. It did little to communicate their missions,values, and impact. The entire user experience, from reporting and reviewing conflicts by the LCW team, to presenting their research to their audience, had to be redesigned. The LCW brand and website was in dire need of a complete overhaul in both design and functionality.
Our goals for this project were two-fold. One, to create a cohesive brand strategy and visual identity for Land Conflict Watch to establish the organisation as a leader in data research and consultancy. Two, we had to design and develop a user-friendly, high performance website with an integrated database to allow the large team of researchers to collate, analyse and publish their research.
Beyond building their brand identity and website, I worked closely with the team for a year to develop various brand assets, including visual content and emails for marketing, annual reports, data-driven microsites and event collateral.
The new website went on to win two awards with research grants following the redesign, saw a 120% increase in page views, and doubled their network of researchers in the span of a single year.
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Brand &
Identity System
Identity System
We kickstarted the project with a comprehensive brand strategy workshop to understand the past, present and future of the organisation. Without a clear brand strategy and identity, the LCW brand lacked cohesion and finesse. I built a modular identity system, including an accessible colour palette, custom iconography and data visualisation design guidelines, all aimed at presenting data and analysis in a concise, user-friendly format.
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It was important to humanize the subject of land and resource conflicts, as it overwhelmingly impacted marginalised communities.
Website Design & Development
At the time of the redesign, the database had grown to contain thousands of data points. The existing website was slow to load, difficult to use, and lacked many features and functions required to use the data being presented. We updated the website to show live data analysis, with an interactive map that showed the geographical distribution of conflicts and drove home the sheer number of conflicts that exist.
I worked closely with the team to realign the organisation’s missions and values with its brand, and championed their cause. I also optimized their workflow to work with them through their tiered research and review processes, and to grow with a diverse team that is rapidly growing and mostly worked remotely across the country. The collaboration resulted in a new website launched on Nov 01, 2019, and it received positive reviews from all stakeholders.
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The challenge was in building an easy-to-use database that allowed the team of dozens of researchers across the country to collect, verify, analyse and publish thousands of data points.
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