Design That Moves People: The Story Behind Civic Season
When design is rooted in purpose—and in close partnership—it doesn’t just inform. It inspires.
Civic Season 2025 is officially underway, running from Juneteenth to July 4. Now in its fifth year, this nationwide tradition invites young people to explore the past and imagine their role in shaping a more perfect future.
Launched in 2021 by Made By Us, Civic Season has reached more than 50 million Americans through the efforts of 400+ participating organizations—museums, cultural institutions, and community groups working together to spark reflection, connection, and civic learning. We’re proud that Citizen Best has played a creative role in supporting that reach, helping shape the brand, design tools, and digital experiences that make it easier (and more inviting) to get involved.
From the beginning, it was clear this wasn’t about slick campaigns or performative patriotism. It was about building something that felt more like a movement—one that’s inclusive, accessible, and designed for real participation.
Here’s how we helped bring that vision to life and what we learned along the way.
What We Took Away: Creative That Works Starts With People
1. Start with real voices—and build from there.
We collaborated with Made By Us and their Gen Z Fellows to shape The Story of You, a print and digital guidebook to help people navigate their Civic Season journey. Designed with bold visuals, playful prompts, playlists and recipes, it invites users to reflect, act and share. Through copy and design support, we turned early ideas into something approachable, colorful, and fun to flip through.
What happened:
- 2,500 printed and distributed at national events
- 2,500+ digital readers
- Created with over 30 contributors, including Gen Zers
📌 What stuck with us: When content feels like it was made with your audience (not just for them), it creates deeper, more meaningful engagement.
2. Make it easy to go from curious to involved.
The Civic Season website was built to make it easy to explore, plan and act. We worked closely with the client team on messaging, UX, UI design and development, to ensure the experience was user-friendly, mobile-ready and welcoming to newcomers.
Results:
- 28,000 page views in 3 weeks
- Nearly 2,000 personal itineraries created
- 1,200 events submitted by 400+ organizations
📌 Lesson learned: Meet people where they are—on their phones, in their communities, and in their day-to-day lives. When participation feels natural and accessible, action becomes a habit, not a hurdle.
3. Consistency helps movements grow.
Civic Season showed up across a wide range of platforms and community-led experiences—and we wanted it to feel like the same initiative, no matter where someone encountered it.
To help the brand show up consistently everywhere, we developed a flexible identity system with customizable templates, a vibrant palette, and energetic typography.
Results:
- 328 design asset downloads
- Toolkit shared across national museum networks and civic groups
📌 Why it mattered: When you give people the tools to show up in a consistent, on-brand way, your message travels further and feels more unified, even when it’s locally led.
Add Your Voice. Reach Out.
Whether you show up at a local event, tune in from your couch, or take action in your own way, Civic Season is a chance to connect with the story of the U.S. and add your voice to it. If interested, you can explore events, resources and ways to get involved here.
Over the years, Civic Season has grown into something joyful, inclusive and genuinely impactful, and we are so grateful to have played a role in shaping that evolution. While the enthusiasm for and longevity of Civic Season is reward enough, we were thrilled to have our work recognized with an Honorable Mention from San Francisco Design Week for civic innovation and creative leadership.
👉 Curious how this kind of creative partnership could support your next initiative? Let’s talk.
