…that’s the description for a website we produced towards the end of last year for launch at the national youthwork conference. the aim of the site is to provide a female voice and perspective in a male-dominated profession.

we were asked to design a logo, website and promo postcards for the newly-formed sophia network. the site was a collaboration with ross kendall using open source technology, hot on the heels of the renaissance friends site. there’s a lot going on in the website and ross did a sterling job to meet a rather tight deadline.

the site has two levels of engagement - casual visitors will see the public face which includes a blog, an editorial, events listing and a taste of the features on offer to members. when you sign in as a member there’s a more in-depth blog, an editorial written specifically for members, resources for download and directories of members and female speakers. this enables the site’s owners to tailor the content to two specific audiences as well as provide an incentive for females in youthwork to join up and benefit from being able to interact online in a safe space. the site is powered by a content management system so the owners have complete facilities to update content and manage the membership details.

for the logo design we did some research into ’sophia’ - the greek word for wisdom and in jewish scripture thought to represent the female part of god, something that reaches into the roman catholic tradition of referring to mary, the mother of christ as ’seat of divine wisdom’. we discovered that in the latin church sophia is usually pictured crowned and in the orthodox church with red skin. thus the crown features in the logo and the gold and red provided a starting point for the website’s colourscheme.