1Hood Media
Services Provided:
Website Design, Website Strategy, Brand Collaboration, Ongoing Site Ownership
Setting Up a Nonprofit to Continue Their Impact
The Problem
1Hood Media has been doing powerful work in Pittsburgh’s Black community for years, but their online presence wasn’t matching their impact. Without a site built to tell their full story, they were missing chances to grow their visibility, attract grants and donations, and bring more people into their five core pillars of work.
Their five pillars lived on the site without clear structure, making it hard for visitors to understand the full scope of 1Hood’s work.
Their existing platform made updates a struggle, leaving the team dependent on outside help for changes they should’ve been able to make themselves.
They wanted more than a vendor. 1Hood was looking for a creative partner to collaborate with throughout the design process, not just execute a brief.
The site wasn’t built to drive action. Newsletter growth, donations, and social following all needed a clearer path.
Simply put, 1Hood needed a website that matched the scale of their mission
The Solution
Our partnership began with a discovery phase focused on understanding 1Hood’s five pillars, their audience, and how they wanted the site to feel and function. From there, we built a Squarespace site designed for clarity, action, and long-term ease of ownership.
- Structuring the Five Pillars: Art, Education, Media, Civic Engagement, and Cultural Organizing each got their own dedicated space and a unique color identity, carried from the homepage down through every inside page. Visitors always know which pillar they’re in, while the site stays unmistakably 1Hood through a consistent black-and-gold foundation underneath.
- Built to Drive Action: We placed clear calls to action throughout the site for newsletter signups, donations, and social following, positioned where visitors are most engaged rather than tucked into a single contact page.
- A Platform 1Hood Can Own: We chose Squarespace specifically so the 1Hood team could make updates confidently on their own, without waiting on a developer or getting stuck on technical roadblocks.
- A True Collaborative Design Process: Rather than handing 1Hood one direction, two RedTree designers each developed a full concept. We presented both to the 1Hood team, who then worked directly with their own artists to shape the final design into something that truly reflected their brand and community.
That mix of structure, color, and shared creative ownership shaped a site that feels as vibrant and intentional as the organization behind it.
The Payoff
1Hood’s website is now more than a digital brochure. It’s a clear front door to their mission and a tool their own team can run.
Clarity for Visitors
Each of the five pillars has its own visual identity and dedicated space, giving visitors an immediate, intuitive sense of the full scope of 1Hood’s work.
A Clear Path to Action:
Newsletter growth, donations, and social following all have dedicated, intentional pathways built into the site.
Independence, Not Dependence:
The 1Hood team can update their own site with confidence, without needing outside help for routine changes.
A Brand Built By the Community It Serves:
The final design is the product of 1Hood’s own artists working alongside RedTree’s designers, not a template handed down from the outside.
The site now also gives 1Hood a home to showcase the scale of their impact — over $700,000 invested in Black creatives and businesses in a single year, more than 50 creatives supported annually, 15+ events each year focused on voter participation and civic education, and 60,000+ followers and subscribers across platforms.
“Having RedTree (Michelle) as our intermediary — making sure all of our thoughts, opinions, and quirks were represented — meant so much to us. That kind of care doesn’t go unnoticed. Watching it all come together, I remember thinking: it’s real now. I can’t wait to tell people in person, ‘Go check out our website.’ And now that it’s live, we’re very, very happy with how this turned out. Honestly, I look at our new website just for fun — it’s become part of how I unwind.”
– Kathleen G. + Jasmine G. 1HOOD Media
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