LifeLine Childline Western Cape offers a 24-hour crisis counselling service, 365 days of the year, to millions of people throughout the Western Cape.

CREATE DESIGN ™ donated the design of the LifeLine / Childline Western Cape website to the organisation as part of our corporate social responsibility plan and we have been doing pro bono work for Lifeline / Childline Western Cape since 2003. In that time, the website has gone from strength to strength. LifeLine / Childline WC started off not having a web presence at all, today they see more than 1000 visits a day to their site. We foresee great developments for the site in the future.

The work done by this organisation covers a huge range of services and community involvement on several different levels. The challenge facing CREATE DESIGN ™ was to develop an online presence for the organisation that would provide access to a wider audience and in so doing showcase the services that the organization offers.

CREATE DESIGN ™ designed the new LifeLine and Childline Western Cape online brand using elements such as the nationally recognised ribbon, a heart, and the telephone cord. We simplified these elements to create the heart-like logo that represents the organisation.

A fundamental part of the logo is the phone number. By incorporating the telephone number into the logo we aimed to make it more accessible and give the public a visual association to help them remember the phone number.

The brand also extends and evolves to include a variation for Childline and the AIDS Helpline, without losing the look and feel of the mother brand. These logos are all an integral part of the charity's online identity.

Beyond the branding, CREATE DESIGN ™ has developed a comprehensive on-line publication which communicates all of LifeLine and Childline’s key services through targeted stories, case studies interviews and articles. As with the rest of the site this too presented an exciting challenge. Content for every category had to be written from scratch – which meant hours of research and consultation with LifeLine and Childline. After our copywriter, Maire Fisher, had populated the bulk of the site, she then conducted interviews with members of LifeLine and Childline on different aspects of working for the organisation. As well as adding a personal touch to the site, these stories were great illustrations of the commitment and dedication of people who work for LifeLine and Childline, both as volunteers and as employees. Content is constantly added to the sites from other sources – all of which keeps the LifeLine Childline websites dynamic and up-to-date.

The sites make strong use of colour illustrations which talk to a cross-section of readers without alienating anyone. This publication has been growing on a monthly basis since 2003. The site now carries more relevant information than any other social helpline website in Africa.

The site was awarded a South African Web Award for content and design in 2004.

In 2005, to extend the reach of the LifeLine website, CREATE DESIGN ™ designed an HTML e-mail newsletter, which LifeLine distributes via email on a quarterly basis.

In 2007 CREATE DESIGN ™ redesigned and refined the website’s look and feel for further ease of navigation and to make the site as fresh and inviting as possible for the users.