Case study · Website and store
Empowerment Avenue, 2026
ea web
A bold, brand-true website that anyone on the team can update, and that updates itself from the organization’s operating system.
- Role
- Designer and developer. Design system, front end, data integration, migration.
- Organization
- Empowerment Avenue Society, a 501(c)(3) working with incarcerated and system-impacted creators.
- Brand
- Built from the 2026 brand package developed with Campaign Zero.
- Status
- Live at empowermentave.org, connected to EA OS.
- 56works in the online store, each with artist, status and price
- 80%of every sale goes directly to the artist, said plainly on the page
- $402Kgenerated for EA artists in 2025, shown live on the home page
- 83+stories published in 2025, part of the impact the site tells
Overview
Empowerment Avenue’s website has to do a lot at once. It tells the story of three programs, shows exhibitions and events, publishes press and resources, collects donations, and runs an online store where incarcerated artists earn most of every sale.
I redesigned and rebuilt it on a new platform, designed it from the brand package, and wired it directly into EA OS so the site always reflects the organization’s real data.
Why I moved it
The site began on Webflow. It looked good, but three things were holding it back.
More control
I wanted to shape layout, behavior and data exactly, without working around a template builder.
Usable by the whole team
Webflow is hard for people who do not build websites, and every update meant re-entering spreadsheet data into its CMS. Now the data is entered once, in EA OS.
Connected to EA OS
Artwork, artists, status and prices already live in the EA OS database. The site should read them directly, not copy them.
Brand system
The visual identity came from a brand package created with Campaign Zero, including the typefaces and the color palette. I turned it into a working web design system, and custom-designed the home banner.
The package asks for one color at a time and black or white type. On the site that becomes black and white with a single yellow accent, and thin bars of teal, orange and blue as punctuation.
- Blue
#36A4FD - Yellow
#F7DA27 - Black
#000000 - Cream
#F9F1E6 - White
#FFFFFF - Orange
#F74902 - Turquoise
#40DBCD
Headlines and buttons — VTC Tatsuro. Body and callouts — Helvetica Neue. Neutral and highly readable, so the work and the words carry the page.
Design decisions
Lead with people
The banner opens on portraits of the people behind the work, in film-style black and white, with the name set huge and unmistakable.
Say the 80% plainly
The store opens with why buying matters and how the money moves: 80% of sales go directly to the artist.
Make buying easy
Artist, price, sort and search filters, an availability label on every piece, clear USD pricing and a cart count in the header.
Show the proof
Upcoming events and the year’s impact numbers appear on the home page, so visitors see momentum, not just a mission statement.
Connected to EA OS
The website no longer holds its own copy of the truth. Artists, artworks, availability and prices are managed once in EA OS. The data goes straight from the EA OS database to the site, so a status change in the operating system shows up in the store without anyone re-entering it. The CMS used to be the go-between for spreadsheets; now it is a light tool for page content only.
Spreadsheets
Artists, artworks, prices and status tracked by hand.
Webflow CMS
The same data re-entered into the CMS as a middle step.
Website
Updated only after both steps were done.
EA OS database
Artists, artworks, series, status, prices, editions and sales records, entered once.
Website
Store, artist pages, exhibitions and programs read the data directly.
Content CMS
Only for page content. No longer used for writers or artists.
Sales information then returns to EA OS for reporting, including the Monday digest.
See the EA OS case study for how the operating system itself was designed and rolled out.
Outcomes
A site the whole team can edit
Artist and artwork data is entered once in EA OS, with no spreadsheet-to-CMS step. The CMS is left for page content.
The store updates itself
Availability, pricing and new work flow from EA OS to the public store.
A brand that holds together
Typography, color and layout follow one system across every page, from the banner to the store.
Full control going forward
The design and the data model can change as the organization grows, without platform limits.
When a store sale is recorded, EA OS logs it and creates the follow-up tasks automatically, so artists are paid within three days instead of waiting on a manual, five-step process. See the EA OS case study for the full before and after.
My role
I led design and development end to end: translating the brand package into a web design system, designing the banner and layouts, building the site, migrating the content, and connecting it directly to the EA OS database.
Brand package developed with Campaign Zero. Site design, build and integration by De’jon Joy.