Equipping the Housing Office
Turning complex housing services into clear, approachable communication.
Snapshot.
CLIENT
City of Albany, NY Housing Office
ROLES SUPPORTED
• Housing Services Advocate
• Fair Housing Officer
MY ROLE
Creative Director, Brand Strategist, Designer
SCOPE
Rebrand + outreach system + public-facing materials
FOCUS
Access, clarity, trust, and compliance
Where We Started
Housing is one of the most urgent and misunderstood areas of municipal government.
Before this project, the Housing Office’s outreach was:
Visually inconsistent
Text heavy and overwhelming
Difficult for residents to understand
Not clearly differentiated by role or service
Hard for non-marketing staff to use effectively
Residents didn’t know:
Who to call
What support existed
What their rights were
Or where to begin
And the staff despite doing critical work did not have a visual system to support them.
The Housing Office didn’t lack purpose.
It lacked the tools to communicate it.
The Strategy
This work wasn’t a traditional “rebrand.”
It was an equipping process.
The goal was to:
Clarify the roles of the Housing Services Advocate and the Fair Housing Officer
Make critical information accessible and unintimidating
Build consistency across all materials
Create templates that non-designers could confidently use
Rebuild trust through clarity, not just messaging
Every design decision answered one question:
Would this make someone feel more informed — or more overwhelmed?
The Rebrand
Why it Matters
This system allowed the Housing Office to:
Present a consistent, credible public face
Communicate complex laws in human language
Empower staff to produce their own materials
Improve outreach in high-need communities
Reduce confusion and misinformation
Housing can be intimidating.
So can government.
Design became the bridge between residents and the support they needed.
This project reflects a core belief in my work:
Equity isn’t just in policy. It’s in presentation.
And access doesn’t start at the door.
It starts with what people can understand.