Institute for the Study of War

Brand StrategyVisual IdentityWeb Strategy & UX

Institute for the Study of War

A more accessible hub for conflict insights

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) plays a critical role in providing timely, authoritative analysis on complex global conflicts. As a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization, ISW produces analysis covering topics from daily military operations to deep historical intelligence research.

However, their previous digital presence struggled to effectively convey their expertise and make accessible the vast amounts of information ISW provides. Recognizing these challenges, ISW partnered with Grafik to completely reimagine their digital experience.

A smarter, stronger platform for ISW

We partnered with ISW to reimagine their online presence—creating an intuitive site that makes research easy to find and engaging to explore. A bold new design, smarter navigation, and refined structure bring clarity to ISW’s mission, while built-in security and AI-driven tools ensure the platform is both protected and future-ready.

What made it work?

Attention to every detail

Grafik began with an extensive strategic immersion, conducting thorough research including website analytics, competitive audit, persona refinement, and stakeholder workshops. This foundational effort informed the creation of a robust content strategy focused on enhancing user journeys, reorganizing navigation, and driving engagement across distinct audience groups ranging from high-level policymakers and warfighters to scholars and the general public.

Informed by the strategy, Grafik iterated on a comprehensive information architecture (IA), reorganizing and refining multiple times as the collaborative effort led ISW to discover new organizational needs for content presentation. In addition to the IA, we worked closely with ISW on a taxonomy that added layered cataloging options to make their content much more discoverable. Significant efforts went into wireframing and UX design, crafting intuitive templates, and ensuring accessibility compliance to AA standards. The visual design phase resulted in a clean, contemporary site that leverages dynamic maps and interactive content to enhance user experience

Putting A.I. to work

ISW hosts more than 24K pieces of research and analysis on its site, and publishes new reports, maps, articles, and more each day. To ensure that no content got lost, the Grafik team created new AI tools and programming to account for each page, remove redundancies, and transform tagging structures to match content to the new organizational strategy.

In addition, the development process leveraged WordPress as well as several integrations including ArcGIS, DonorPerfect, Google Analytics, and Constant Contact. Grafik implemented a complex faceted search feature to make the depth of research and insights more accessible and discoverable. A meticulous content migration strategy was executed, carefully transferring over 8,000 pages from legacy systems, significantly improving usability and organization.

24k+

Website pages migrated and created

17k+

Maps Collected in a new Map Room

49M

Website Pageviews

65+

product lines reorganized and tagged

Outcome

The result is a strategic, technology-forward website that not only reinforces ISW’s thought leadership but also vastly improves audience engagement and accessibility of their critical research. ISW now possesses a robust digital platform strategically aligned with their mission, ensuring they can continue to inform and shape critical conversations around global security and grow for years to come.

Canopy Neurodiversity Foundation

Brand StrategyVisual IdentityWeb Strategy & UX

Empowering employment for neurodivergent individuals

Everyone wants the opportunity to reach their full potential, and key to realizing this is a meaningful career. But for neurodivergent individuals, the path from school to employment can be daunting. While a variety of organizations offer support for these job seekers and potential employers, their efforts are not well coordinated, they often lack funding and they all need committed, qualified people.

Washington Neurodiversity Project was created to address this head on, with a goal of launching a new foundation to finance and support these organizations in Washington State. They turned to Grafik to build their new brand from the ground up.

We formed a partnership with WNP’s team and visionary founders to launch The Canopy Neurodiversity Foundation in 2025, by:

Clarifying the mission
with clear navigation and filtering functionality so users can access the research they need within seconds.

Setting the brand strategy through stakeholder research and definition of brand pillars, positioning, and audience messaging.

Naming the organization “Canopy Neurodiversity Foundation” to evoke the shelter, growth and connection they are building.

Designing a logo and full visual identity to capture tone and imagery to bring the brand to life.

Developing canopyfoundation.org website and suite of brand materials for launch and ongoing communications.

We made it work.

Deep commitment.
This was, and is, personal for Canopy and for our Grafik team. Helping our own neurodivergent children, nieces and nephews, and friends reach their full potential hits home for all of us, and Grafik has been working with organizations focused on this cause for many years.

Collaboration and camaraderie
Yes, there were weekly Zoom meetings, but we also traveled to Seattle many times for in-person sessions with the Canopy team. Every trip was impactful and meaningful, creating connection, unified vision, and an engaging and collaborative relationship.

Attention to detail.
Every word and phrase was crafted to be appropriate for and respectful of neurodivergent individuals. Every image and website page was designed for connection and compliance. And every part of the brand was focused by Canopy’s clear and compelling mission.

We envision Washington state as a leader in employment neuroinclusion, where a broad community of people come together to shape a future where neurodiversity in the workplace is acknowledged, accommodated and celebrated.

Thank you for the extraordinary work and partnership shepherding our nascent identity from quiet existence to proud presence! Thanks to your efforts, we have an official name, great taglines, a complete website and a path forward for brand building. Even better, those things were built in settings filled with kindness, humour, empathy and patience. You are all amazing and fun and thank you for the service to the cause. GO GRAFIK!

THE CANOPY TEAM

Outcome

Canopy Neurodiversity Foundation launched in August 2025, beginning its dedicated quest to bring about change… We at Grafik are thankful for this collaboration, very proud of the work, and confident that Canopy will make a real and very important difference in Washington State, and beyond.

NAIS

American College of Radiology

National Pork Producers Council

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Manufacturers Alliance

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National Grocers Association

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National Human Genome Research Institute

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation

After interviews and focus groups with patients and physicians, it was clear that while every fertility journey is different, everyone has received well-intentioned but useless advice while seeking answers. For those ready to begin treatment–our primary target audience–the inadequacy of this advice is both obvious and annoying. They’ve even tried some of these “folk remedies” out of desperation. They’re now ready for real science and medicine that gets results–carried out with heart and humanity as only SGF does.

Our “Better Approach”campaign humorously plays off these shared experiences while delivering an emotionally powerful and credible path to parenthood.

The fertility center marketplace in New York City is a crowded one. WIth several well established and well known names already operating, how do we make Shady Grove Fertility (SGF), one of the largest and most successful fertility centers in the country, stand out as a new player in NYC? A competitive audit revealed that lush photography of adorable babies and families was ubiquitous–who wouldn’t be enchanted? But what set these photos apart from each other? We chose purposely chose to lead with a different creative approach that starts with an understanding of the emotional toll that comes with trying to conceive.

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