Hawai‘i is our Passion

It may come as a surprise to many that SLD works on a good number of government projects. We have worked on a variety of City & County, State and Federal projects, and consider these our passion projects. We go through an open bidding process, creating a proposal that states who we are and how we plan to accomplish the goals of the procurer. It is actually a very time intensive endeavor. It is also difficult to win these bids as most of the time, the State or government agency is looking for the lowest bidder. We are definitely not the cheapest option. At times we are actually the most expensive bidder. The price we offer is almost always at a discounted rate. The sheer amount of hours we spend on each government project outweighs the payment. And that is why we call these our passion projects. We work on them because we strongly believe we are the best choice for Hawai‘i. All of us at SLD have strong convictions about how government agencies should speak to their audiences—with clarity, care and authenticity. We 100% believe the people of Hawai‘i deserve good design that helps them get the information they need. With good design we can lessen the amount of time an employee spends answering questions, help parents find important information about school services, educate the general public and dispel misinformation with clear facts. We can even help to save lives by making preventative care information easier to find. 

Last year, we were honored to be chosen to redesign the Hawai‘i State Department of Education’s (HIDOE) website. The old website looked like the typical State agency website. It included dizzying amounts of information but lacked a clear navigation, making it difficult for site visitors to find what they were looking for.

We worked closely with the HIDOE Communications team and immersed ourselves in the issues that plagued the old site to ensure the redesigned site acted as an effective tool for site visitors, HIDOE staff and administrators. We spent months going through every single page and worked hard to determine the content that was most relevant to their target audiences.

The result is a site that is much easier to navigate while at the same time reflects the core mission and values of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education. 

In March, we launched the brand new Hawaiʻi State Department of Education (HIDOE) website after months of research, design and development work to create a site that is intuitive, reflects a Hawaiian sense of place, and is a valuable resource to local and incoming families. Since launching the new site, the total number of page visitors, page views and average time spent on the site has increased every month.