On Our Terms is a participatory action research project about restorative justice in the New York City schools. The organizers, Talia Sandwick and Anooj Bhandari, envisioned a website that not only shared research findings, but was also a toolkit and a welcoming space for both seasoned RJ activists and for newcomers, that appealed both to young people and to adults, and that allowed for a variety of entry points and kinds of engagement. My design tried to hold the project’s aversion to hierarchy, its embrace of nuance, messiness, and depth, and its feeling of openness. In visual terms, that ended up meaning a lot of circles and circular animation, bright colors (but not too bright!), scratchy lines and blobby shapes. We prioritized accessibility in the design and production of both the website (which is bilingual, responsive, and relatively lightweight, in addition to being accessible for users with disabilities) and an extensive set of downloadable PDFs, including a full report.


