Good & Common, a free online educational platform that empowers Americans to know and use their civil rights, launches today. The platform is a collaboration between celebrated civil rights lawyer, DeWitt Lacy and the San Francisco-based brand strategy and design studio, Landscape.

Landscape worked with Lacy to bring his vision to life in the form of a new brand and online resource, starting with research and strategy, leading to a visual identity and web design, followed by writing and content creation for the digital experience.

DeWitt Lacy, founder of Good & Common says: “In these crucial times, where there are daily attacks on our individual rights, there is a need to use new forms of media and technology to educate regular people on their civil rights. With Landscape’s help, we’ve created a platform that harnesses new media and tech for the good of Americans across the country.”

Adam Weiss, Founder & Executive Creative Director, Landscape says: “Fundamentally, Good & Common was created in an effort to help protect life and strengthen community. We’re proud to have played a role in realizing DeWitt’s vision, and are hopeful the platform will support our social fabric nation-wide.”

Social impact at scale

DeWitt Lacy has been a civil rights attorney for the past 12 years. He has fought vigorously on criminal and litigation cases pertaining to police misconduct and brutality, and has successfully prosecuted wrongful death actions and civil rights violations throughout the State of California. Partnering with Landscape as a result of the studio’s initiative to support Bay-Area Black-owned businesses, Lacy’s ambition was to distil his career knowledge into a free platform that would educate and empower Americans to use their civil rights when interacting with law enforcement.

Landscape, which has helped clients ranging from Google and Intel to The Kelsey, selected Lacy’s project proposal because it offered a chance to create meaningful and much-needed social impact at scale in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.

Weiss and his team were confident they could add value to Lacy’s vision by leveraging design – to translate complex, critical ideas into a human, and future-forward brand experience.

The name, Good & Common is universal, democratic, and optimistic, reflecting the long term vision for the platform. Landscape and Lacy agreed on the name in large part because it communicated the brand’s intentions with clarity and power. Ben Bloom, Associate Creative Director at Landscape says: “It signals a sense of unity and accessibility — a brand that can act as a resource for all people.”

Accessible and actionable

Crucial to the Good & Common platform is a strategic content architecture that translates Lacy’s extensive knowledge and experience in the legal field into accessible and actionable information for every American.

“It was clear from the beginning that DeWitt’s vision for Good & Common could greatly benefit an extremely diverse community—ourselves included,” says Landscape’s Weiss. “We have awareness of our civil rights, but we lack understanding, especially when it comes to action. The opportunity to capture this knowledge digitally, make it accessible widely, and package it simply can offer real value to the public.”

Bloom adds: “DeWitt had this project in his head for almost five years, and needed direction to turn his wealth of knowledge into something digestible, accessible, and interesting.” To that end, Landscape oversaw the creation of text and video resources to help inform people about their rights and how to use them. The team at Landscape then created a content architecture that ensures people get the most important information they need on topics ranging from “Protesting” to “Filming the Police.”

To increase the accessibility of the platform, videos and text will be translated into Spanish and Chinese, with plans to expand into other languages over time.

Confident and urgent

Also critical to creating a genuinely accessible resource was Good & Common’s visual and verbal identity, which Landscape created in partnership with Lacy.
Good & Common’s values are illustrated through a friendly but powerful logo that brings to mind both a bookshelf to represent the knowledge offered through the platform, but also a peace sign, demonstrating the impact the platform can have on Americans’ lives.

The simple but bold design language was largely inspired by posters, pamphlets, and buttons from the civil rights movement. Landscape’s Bloom says: “We appreciated how bold and powerful the graphics and type were. The confidence and urgency felt relevant for Good & Common from both a historical perspective, but also serve to support the broad appeal and substantive nature of the content delivered by the platform.”

The identity as a whole is straightforward and effective. “We want the brand to be memorable and inspiring but we also want it to take a backseat to the information,” explains Bloom.

Growing awareness toward action

“The compelling thing about Good & Common is that if you live in the United States, you need to know this information,” says Bloom. “Regardless of your age, ethnicity, job, interests etc, it’s necessary to know and understand your civil rights. What we’ve done with DeWitt is offer Americans a real chance to do that.”

With the platform launching today, Lacy and Landscape intend to continue building Good & Common’s library of information. Over the next several months, Lacy plans to connect with civil-rights centered organizations to build a national campaign structure that ensures Good & Common reaches far and wide, from policy makers to public schools, local leaders to small businesses, and communities large and small.