ActCoastal is a campaign to protect California’s coast by bringing transparency and accountability to the actions of the California Coastal Commission. ActCoastal works to ensure that California’s coastal environment remains protected, healthy and accessible by protecting coastal conservation, environmental justice and public access to CA’s beaches. As lovers of the natural world with a passion for protecting these spaces and ensuring values of environmental justice, this was a great opportunity for us to design a website that brought our values forward.
Land use, permitting, and government meetings can get detailed and wonky pretty quickly. Our goal with Act Coastal was to create a site where it was easy for the public to learn about the Coastal Commission’s work without getting bogged down in too much bureaucratic detail - but it’s there for anyone who wants to dive deeper.
Our design process worked to find a balance and could convey a lot of information for the public but kept clean design elements in mind.
August Creative created a database that pulls in information from each Coastal Commission meeting and tracks vote records to create monthly vote reports, commissioner score cards, and annual report cards. The database creates an easy visual report of the commission’s work and provides an important tool for the public to know how their commissioners vote to protect their beaches.
We’re proud to have worked on a project that brings accountability to government meetings and protects the coastline for generations of surfers, beachcombers, and swimmers.