Ubuntu ASAP | Full Social Media Campaign
CLIENT
Ubuntu Architecture Summer Abroad Program
LOCALITY
Durban, South Africa
DATE
October 2020 to September 2021
CATEGORY
Branding + Content Generation
TYPE
Graphic Design, Graphics, Branding, Content Strategy
SERVICE PROVIDED
Graphic Design - Y + Content Strategy - M
MEDIUM
Digital
STATUS
Completed
What does it take to build a nonprofit brand from the ground up—one that educates, empowers, and inspires across continents? For Ubuntu ASAP, a new international architecture program, the challenge wasn’t just launching a competition—it was crafting a digital presence that spoke with clarity, compassion, and purpose. Over the course of a year, ZFMK Creative helped define and deliver Ubuntu ASAP’s voice, visual language, and outreach strategy across social media platforms.
Brand Alignment & Expansion
When Ubuntu ASAP launched, it already had a clear and compelling visual identity: a bold logomark, vibrant color palette, and a typographic system grounded in Gotham Narrow and Minion Pro. These elements, outlined in their Graphic Standards Manual, offered a strong visual foundation for the brand's growth. ZFMK Creative honored and reinforced these foundations while addressing several key areas where expansion was needed for a more successful social presence. Our role was to build on that foundation—translating the existing brand system into a dynamic, functional toolkit for digital platforms.
New social media logo for profile images and graphics
Working alongside the organization’s leadership team, we:
Developed and documented brand voice and tone to align with Ubuntu’s values of community, empowerment, and education
Designed supplementary brand assets for web and digital use, including social media icons, a browser favicon, email logo lockups, and a bio link landing page for easy access to registration and resources
Created social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter
Audited newly created platforms and ensured consistent representation across channels
This approach respected the visual identity already in place while expanding it into a more flexible, recognizable, and accessible system for online engagement.
Content Stream Strategy
To organize and balance the diversity of content within Ubuntu ASAP’s mission, ZFMK Creative developed a five-stream content system, each tied to a core theme and audience segment. These streams were visually identified using Ubuntu ASAP’s brand colors and a custom icon set, creating a consistent, recognizable rhythm across the feed.
Each stream was visually anchored by its assigned color, often introduced via semi-transparent overlays or graphic frames. This allowed viewers to recognize the theme of a post at a glance—without distracting from images, quotes, or longer-form storytelling.
SPONSORSHIP
This category of content highlights the impact of Ubuntu ASAP’s supporters. It features sponsor spotlights, celebrates scholarship recipients, and encourages new sponsorships through online giving campaigns. The goal is to foster gratitude, transparency, and community engagement.
TESTIMONIALS
This category of content features personal reflections from individuals who have engaged with the program, including students, professors, sponsors, and community members. These stories offer insight into the impact through lived experience, helping to build trust, connection, and authenticity.
APARTHEID
This category of posts provides educational context around systemic injustice and spatial equity. By spotlighting key terms, histories, and patterns of oppression in the built environment, these posts aim to deepen understanding and frame the mission within a broader movement for justice.
PRESS
This category of posts highlights moments when Ubuntu ASAP is featured, mentioned, or actively participates in broader conversations. It includes lectures, media coverage, partnerships, and announcements—amplifying the voices that support, challenge, and reflect the work we do.
DESIGN/BUILD
This category of content documents the design/build journey—from program updates and construction milestones to architectural insights and techniques. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how ideas become structures and how learning happens through building.
Visual Storytelling in Action
While each content stream had its own color and icon, not every post followed that formula visually—and that was by design.
At the start of the campaign, we introduced a strong visual rhythm: semi-transparent color blocks overlaid on images to distinguish stream content and establish brand presence. But we also recognized that relying solely on graphic treatments could lead to a sterile or overly templated feed. The human stories behind Ubuntu ASAP required visual breathing room and emotional nuance.
To create visual and emotional balance, we selectively broke the pattern through the introduction of full-photo posts paired with word-first carousels. This image-led storytelling added warmth, authenticity, and variation to the grid. Furthermore this perfectly aligned with a core visual motif introduced in the first project and design brief.
A core visual motif of this program is that
“people are the life of spaces,
and architecture is the frame. “This grid helps frame the images between
and anchor them to broader campaign.
Some posts focused on informative reflection—like this long-form caption about the economic consequences of urban migration. Others simply captured moments of joy or cultural connection—like this candid post showing students in the community.
This strategy:
Helped prevent visual fatigue
Gave hierarchy to storytelling (e.g., quote first, photo second)
Maintained content stream integrity through color accents, without visual overload
Created a natural rhythm between design and humanity
We aimed to maintain harmony between solemnity and optimism, a central tension in Ubuntu ASAP’s mission, and to tell stories that looked and felt as multidimensional as the work itself.
Content Funnels & Intentional Messaging
Our content wasn’t just designed to look beautiful; it was structured with purpose. Each post was crafted to guide the audience through a content funnel, moving from awareness to engagement to action. This helped transform passive viewers into active participants, students, sponsors, and advocates.
We beleive at ZFMK that…
Not every post needs to convert
but every post should have a purpose.Everything had a place in the funnel.
We aligned content types and tones with different stages of the audience journey:
Top of Funnel (Awareness):
Eye-catching quote graphics, mission-led carousels, and introductory Reels introduced Ubuntu ASAP to new audiences and communicated its values clearly at a glance.
Middle of Funnel (Engagement):
Testimonials, behind-the-scenes updates, student stories, and press features provided audiences with a reason to stay, building emotional connection, credibility, and trust over time.
Bottom of Funnel (Action):
Content with clear calls-to-action like “Apply now,” “Sponsor a student,” or “Vote for your favorite design”converted interest into real-world steps. These posts were carefully timed to coincide with key program milestones.
This funnel-based strategy ensured that every piece of content had a specific purpose, whether to inform, inspire, or invite. By aligning copy, design, and timing with audience intent, we helped Ubuntu ASAP grow not only in visibility but in meaningful engagement.
Scheduling, Platforms & Strategic Pacing
From the start, our goal was to develop a content rhythm that was consistent, intentional, and flexible. Working closely with Ubuntu ASAP’s leadership team, ZFMK Creative established a robust content calendar that evolved alongside the program itself.
In the early campaign phase, we aimed to post 2–3 times per week, accompanied by supporting Instagram Stories to amplify visibility, especially among prospective students. As the program transitioned into the live class phase, we strategically reduced posting to 1–2 updates per week, focused on real-time highlights and key moments from the field. Once the program concluded, posts centered around the popular vote, participant spotlights, and the final announcement of the winning design.
Major content milestones included:
Program launch & call for students
Design brief release
Registration open, close, and deadline extensions
Class kickoff and completion
Popular vote opening
Final selection of the winning design by the Ngcobo family
To manage and monitor this cadence, we used Zoho Social to schedule posts, track engagement, and align content with application deadlines, class events, and external partnerships. Our visual content was also tailored by platform, adapting to the formatting and tone best suited to Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
While growth in followers was steady rather than explosive, we recognized this campaign was unfolding during a uniquely uncertain time: the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many students and supporters were cautious about travel, tuition, and long-term commitments. Our content strategy prioritized clarity, connection, and consistent presence over vanity metrics.
What We Learned
This campaign was one of the most meaningful and ambitious social media projects ZFMK Creative has taken on. From strategy to storytelling, voice to visuals, we helped Ubuntu ASAP build a digital presence that reflected the heart of its mission: empowering through architecture, equity, and education. Grounded in the Ubuntu philosophy—“I am because you are”—this work reminded us of the collective power of storytelling done with intention.
“I am because you are” – Ubuntu
While we proudly donated our time to bring this project to life, we also learned the importance of balancing pro bono work with financial sustainability. In the future, we’ll aim to secure additional paying clients before committing to projects of this size and scope—but we remain deeply proud of the vision, the impact, and the relationships this work helped foster.
By the end of the campaign:
Ubuntu ASAP had gained global visibility
Eleven students and three sponsors joined the program
The campaign was featured on blogs and design competition platforms
On a practical level, this project affirmed the value of structure:
Content streams allowed us to organize both new and legacy content into manageable themes—while also revealing where content needed to be created or captured
Pre-scheduling posts in 2–3 week batches gave us room for strategy, responsiveness, and sanity
This work reaffirmed our belief that digital storytelling can create real-world momentum and that, when set up with care, systems free us to focus on what really matters: telling stories that move people.
