Durham Community Land Trustees

Durham Community Land Trustees (DCLT) has worked since 1987 to keep homes in Durham, North Carolina, affordable for good. They build, manage, and advocate for permanently affordable and ADA accessible housing for people with low to moderate incomes. Many of the people they serve are learning about land trusts for the first time, and many arrive on a phone.

Legacy Co. built DCLT's website and much of their branding, and we still manage the site today.

The Website

We started with wireframes for the home page, the about page, and a set of subpage layouts, all in DCLT's teal and green. Those became a WordPress site organized around what people come to do.

• Buy a Home and Find a Rental sit first in the menu, with a page and photos for each available home.
• Where We Own shows the neighborhoods where DCLT has homes.
• Resident Resources, an events calendar, and news and newsletters give current residents and neighbors a reason to come back.
• A Donate button stays at the top of every page.

The home page now leads with DCLT's 50th anniversary campaign, Bringing Durham Home, followed by their mission, featured projects, and the latest news.

The Brand

We put DCLT's look into a simple brand guide: the logo, a palette of deep teal, bright green, and soft cream, Europa for type, and a mood of real neighbors and real porches. From there we made the pieces the site and the team use every day.

• Neighborhood graphics: West End, Central Durham, East Durham, and Southside & Hayti each get a photo washed in teal with the name set in cream and green.
• Annual report: the 2021-22 report carries the same teal and green into print.
• Roof elements: a line drawing of rooftops pulled from the logo, used as an accent across the site.