Case study – Pittsburgh Yards

Catalyzing Equitable Economic & Cultural Growth Through Design
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Scope and My Role

Role: Head of Design and Management (2018–2020). 

Scope: I led the full brand-and-experience mission for Phase I of Pittsburgh Yards, which included: stakeholder alignment, community engagement, conceptual identity design, environmental and environmental-graphics design (signage, spatial branding), brand-to-experience translation (digital/physical), and framing the project’s long-term story.

I worked closely with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, BeltLine partners, real estate developers, small business owners, community groups, and future occupants — converting vision and feedback into a cohesive brand system that could guide development, leasing, activation, and community programming.

Challenge

Communities across Southwest Atlanta were struggling with fragmented communication channels, low trust in existing feedback tools, and limited transparency around how resident input shaped decisions.

Town halls generated ideas but not continuity. Surveys collected data but didn’t build collective understanding. Property managers and civic leaders were overwhelmed by tools that didn’t work together, while residents lacked a shared space to visualize priorities or track progress.

The core challenge was to design an engagement system that created clarity, trust, and collaboration — a platform that allowed neighborhoods to participate directly in shaping the future of their community.

Constraints

  • Communities involved had varying levels of digital literacy, requiring an experience that was intuitive and accessible.

  • Budgets and staffing were lean, limiting capacity for complex workflows or custom tooling.

  • Stakeholders spanned residents, youth groups, nonprofits, developers, community leaders, and property managers, each with unique expectations and priorities.

  • Historical mistrust of “engagement tools” meant the platform needed to be transparent, equitable, and visibly responsive.

  • Engagement needed to scale across multiple neighborhoods, not just one property or one development partner.

These realities shaped every design decision, requiring Bespeak to operate not just as an app but as a community infrastructure system.

Process

The design needed to account for varied digital literacy, lean budgets, and limited staffing, which meant the experience had to be intuitive and effortless to maintain.

  1. Listening & Alignment

    • I participated in weekly community meetings to hear firsthand from residents, entrepreneurs, and local stakeholders.

    • I facilitated conversations that surfaced hopes, fears, priorities, and local identity aspirations.

    • This listening phase grounded the design in lived experience rather than external assumptions.

  2. Translating Strategy into Identity

    • With stakeholder and foundation leadership, I distilled the project’s strategic ambitions — economic mobility, entrepreneurship, cultural affirmation, equity — into a design brief rooted in people and place.

    • I negotiated tensions: between investors’ desire for financial viability, developers’ requirements, and community expectations around authenticity, inclusion, and fair opportunity.

  3. Design & Systems Thinking

    • I developed a flexible brand and experience system anchored by a “P” mark — a continuous line symbolizing connection across people, history, and opportunity. 

    • I extended the identity beyond a logo: to physical signage, environmental graphics, digital presence, and spatial storytelling throughout the site (particularly in the Nia Building business hub). 

  4. Bridging Design, Activation, and Economic Planning

    • I worked alongside developers and economic planners to ensure brand integrity was married to functional requirements: leasing, workspace layouts, maker-spaces, and mixed-use programming.

    • I designed environmental and spatial systems that supported small businesses, entrepreneurs, and creative makers — not just for aesthetics, but for real economic activation and community use.

Solution

The result is a living brand-and-experience ecosystem for Pittsburgh Yards.

  • A brand identity rooted in community values — resilience, creativity, equity — but structured and scalable enough to support real estate development, commercial leasing, and long-term growth.

  • A design system that spans logo, environmental graphics, signage, spatial design, digital presence — creating a cohesive narrative and sense of place across physical and virtual spaces.

  • A foundation that connects strategy (economic inclusion, entrepreneurship, community uplift), funding, and local heritage. The design doesn’t just represent a vision — it activates it.

I treat design as a tool for trust-building as much as for communication.

Process

I approached the project through alignment and inclusion

I joined weekly community meetings to listen first, gathering real insights from residents and entrepreneurs so their voices guided every design decision. Partnering with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, project leads, and economic development partners, I helped translate strategy into outcomes that supported leasing, programming, and activation. By transforming open-ended feedback into clear, actionable design systems, I unified brand, environmental, and digital experiences into one cohesive vision that reflected the project’s purpose.

Results and impact

We created a cohesive brand anchored by the “P” mark—a continuous line symbolizing connection across people, history, and opportunity.

  • Supported a $26M+ Phase I development with a unified, community-driven brand and experience framework. 

  • Enabled leasing and activation of 101 small business workspaces inside the Nia Building — advancing entrepreneurship, maker-economy, and job creation. 

  • Helped secure public funding (federal EDA and NMTC grants) — underpinning future growth and supporting a projected 1,000+ long-term jobs as the site evolves. 

  • Created a flexible, scalable identity system and spatial framework that anchors community equity, cultural pride, and economic potential as the site expands — ensuring legacy, inclusion, and growth.

  • Demonstrated how design can serve as connective tissue — linking social purpose, economic strategy, stakeholder coordination, and lived community identity into a unified, future-ready development.

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