Comic Relief Fighting Malaria

COMIC RELEIF - ‘Fighting Malaria, Improving Health’ www.fightingmalaria.co.uk

Comic Relief raises millions of pounds through two big fundraising campaign, Red Nose Day and Sport Relief. Less well known is its work with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to combat malaria and strengthen the healthcare system in countries with particularly acute needs. As the five-year partnership came to an end, Comic Relief and its pharmaceutical partner were committed to creating a central repository of content and assets – including films, images, case studies, reports and evaluations – to make the acquired learning available to others in the long-term, and demonstrate the value of partnerships in global health.

The project was to provide concepts, design, development and hosting for a website for Comic Relief’s flagship ‘Fighting Malaria, Improving Health’ partnership with GSK – but, of course, it went much further than that. Emotionally engaged, we wanted to support our client fully in the creation of a complete online experience that amplified the voices of communities affected by malaria, as well as sharing knowledge from sector stakeholders across government, policy, academia, funders and civil society, highlighting the many success stories and, ultimately, helping showcase the legacy of the five-year GSK partnership long after it came to an end in 2021.

Parkhouse hosted a series of client workshops to explore the scope of the project, and better understand the priorities and barriers to communication. Together, we established a simple information architecture and impactful design that put people, projects and their inspirational stories at the core. Although the site takes visual cues from Comic Relief’s website, we used our extensive experience to flex the assets to create standout and interest, and provided flexibility for content editors with clearly labelled design components and selectable (on-brand) variables. The site uses a Contentful CMS system to allow editors to work in the same environment as the main website.

In a further move to enhance the overall user experience, we used intelligent tagging and content curation to help readers explore by country and discover related content. This user-focused approach to design and functionality achieved an accessibility score of 98%, with desktop performance of more than 95%. Since being launched in June 2021, the site has recorded a 100% SEO score and has achieved an A+ SSL security rating. Today, it’s a lasting legacy to the partnership between Comic Relief and GSK, and is a vital resource in the global fight against malaria