A website all about the funny business of inspiring better performance.

Second City Works is the professional services arm of the legendary Second City comedy theater. They use improv methods to engage employees, improve business critical skills and increase company-wide performance. It’s an awesome story that many companies are eager to hear. But SCW’s website wasn’t telling it.

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*Our clients are empowered to evolve their websites on their own. Live websites may not reflect our original designs.

We interviewed dozens of stakeholders and clients to define SCW’s three services (professional development, corporate events and creative campaigns) and connect them to one value proposition: Inspiring better performance. We streamlined the site’s architecture to clarify SCW’s offerings and we rewrote site content to help people understand how improv methods improve performance.

The new brand design speaks to corporate audiences without losing sight of Second City’s personality. Inspired by the improv principle “Yes, and,” the design language combines simple shapes in unexpected ways to highlight SCW’s key benefits and differentiators.

On top of improved lead generation, a big goal for the web design was making content more engaging. We did that by using surprising interactions and animations to emphasize key ideas and to make the user experience more playful and fun. A lot like how it feels to work with SCW.

Our challenge was wrangling a motley mix of unique service offerings into a concise, cohesive and compelling narrative. Heco met it with a potent combination of strategic insights and creative prowess. They quickly developed what seemed like an innate understanding of our business. They brought to bear design sensibilities that are nonpareil and copy chops that are a cut above. And they were flexible throughout the process, pivoting and adapting where needed. Heco not only gave us a phenomenal end-product, but they actually helped shape the strategic direction of the company.

Bumper Carroll, VP Creative at Second City Works