DigiBC represents British Columbia’s creative technology sector and brings several distinct programs together under one name, including Signals, its creative tech expo, and DigiBC Careers, its work placement program connecting students and employers.
The challenge was to give each program enough personality to stand on its own while making the relationship to DigiBC unmistakable.
I worked with Forge & Spark on the project, with LKI leading the design and digital experience. We started with Design Guidelines for the parent organization, then extended that system into the individual programs. Signals and DigiBC Careers could develop their own visual character while still feeling like part of the same organization.
Forge & Spark brought their content expertise to the project, developing the ongoing storytelling, blog posts, and social content that keep the programs visible between major launches. That included content around the Work Placement Program and the DigiConnect mentorship initiative.
The digital experience followed the same approach I use across LKI projects: establish the foundation first, then build from it. Design Guidelines came before the site structure, and the structure came before production. The result is a more cohesive digital ecosystem that can support DigiBC as its programs evolve, rather than treating each initiative as a separate website or campaign.
The site also includes an online media kit, giving sponsors and partners one current place to understand DigiBC and the full range of programs it runs.
The work is a good example of where strategy, design, content, and implementation need to work together. The individual programs have room to be themselves, but the system underneath them keeps the whole organization connected.
DigiBC's core identity was defined clearly enough to extend, rather than repeat, across Signals and DigiBC Careers.
DigiBC’s core identity was defined clearly enough to extend, rather than repeat, across Signals and DigiBC Careers. The same foundation principle applies to every engagement: build the guidelines solid enough that what comes next, a new program, a new platform, plugs in without starting over.
The online build followed a planning pass built to hold three related but distinct programs at once. A sitemap worked out where Signals and DigiBC Careers each needed their own pages and where those pages needed to connect back to the DigiBC parent site, and wireframes resolved that structure before any of it went into production, on WordPress and Elementor, hosted on Kinsta.
Forge & Spark handled the content side in parallel, building a story pillar framework around DigiBC’s mission and turning it into ongoing blog and social content across the organization’s programs. Keeping design and content as distinct, coordinated workstreams meant each could move at its own pace without waiting on the other.
Curious, thoughtful, and collaborative, Lara asks the right questions to better understand our objectives and audience. Her work is not only elegant and effective – but also consistently delivered on time and on budget.
Rachel Kelly
Program Director, DigiBC
“Lara elevated every aspect of this ambitious expo,” says Loc Dao, CEO at DigiBC. The identity has held up through multiple cycles of Signals and the continued growth of DigiBC Careers, extending to new needs instead of being rebuilt for them.
DigiBC now treats design and build as an on-call day-rate relationship rather than a closed project, calling on it whenever a program changes enough to need it. Sponsors evaluating DigiBC continue to see one coherent organization across every active program, not a brand that was current only at launch.
The partnership with Forge & Spark runs in parallel on the same basis, both practices returning to the same set of programs as they keep changing, rather than treating DigiBC as a finished case study from a single year.
A digital resource hub that turns clinical psychology research into practical tools for climate activists and campaign leaders.
A wellness studio built before it existed, with Forge & Spark and Mariana Tek.
Forge & Spark is a content marketing agency helping purpose-driven brands grow through authentic, high-quality storytelling, and the relationship here runs deeper than one project: Design Guidelines and a full site build made to last, an ongoing fractional seat as VP, Creative Strategy, and now AI getting worked into how the site runs.
