We’re proud to share that Forum One was recently honored as a 2024 Vega Awards winner of 11 awards in five different categories! 

The Vega Awards acknowledge those who create and continually expand the digital universe. Organized by the International Awards Association (IAA), the awards recognize and honor the outstanding performance, talent, and effort of the best digital and creative professionals worldwide.

Forum One’s 11 awards included two platinum, five gold, and four silver awards across focus areas, including cultural institutions, health and wellness, environmental awareness, and government. These awards honored Forum One’s work in building websites, digital tools, and virtual experiences for our clients.

Oregon Zoo

Platinum – Website & Mobile Sites – Cultural

Based in Portland, the Oregon Zoo is a prominent regional institution that receives around 1.5 million annual visits and helps protect more than 20 endangered and threatened species.

Forum One worked with the Oregon Zoo to redesign its website as part of its strategic efforts to deliver an inspiring guest experience and better convey its offerings and impact.

The end result is accessible, multilingual, and mobile-first digital experience. Design choices also include delightful interactive features, such as load animations and hover effects, and striking photography to highlight the Zoo’s impact.

Wild Hope

Platinum – Website & Mobile Sites – Environmental Awareness

Wild Hope is a video production that highlights the heroes and successes, small and large, of biodiversity preservation. Forum One collaborated with Tangled Bank Studios to develop a stunning, mobile-responsive, user-friendly website that showcases the documentary series and enhances user interaction and exploration.

The site’s design emphasizes three primary avenues for discovering content: watching the series, exploring additional materials like interviews and lesson plans, and engaging in real-world activities, such as building a native plant garden. 

Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Gold – Website & Mobile Sites – Cultural

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH) – housing such iconic artifacts as the original Star-Spangled Banner, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, and Dorothy’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” – welcomes approximately 2 million in-person visitors annually. Forum One partnered with the Museum on a full website redesign and upgrade, to welcome more diverse audiences and provide a space to discover our shared American history through a modern, inclusive, and forward-looking digital experience.

Natural Resources Defense Council

Gold – Website & Mobile Sites – Environmental Awareness

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been working since 1970 to safeguard the earth. NRDC combines the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of more than 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.

Forum One worked with NRDC this year to redesign their website. The redesigned website continues to help NRDC deliver on its mission to safeguard the earth for years to come. This work has empowered NRDC’s content managers, further engaged audiences in the mission, and amplified the organization’s impact. 

HHMI BioInteractive Community Platform

Gold – Website & Mobile Sites – Environmental Awareness

Forum One worked with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) BioInteractive team to create a user-friendly and engaging collection of educational resources, interactive applications, lesson plans, workshops, videos, news articles, and more to help 40,000 science educators around the world connect students with inspiring ideas in biology and increase engagement with the sciences. 

The new website allows educators to search and explore multimedia resources across topics and formats and assemble them into customized and shareable collections and lesson plans. 

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

Gold – Website & Mobile Sites – Health / Fitness / Wellness

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, uses data to show how where we live matters to our health. 

For the past 11 annual rankings, Forum One has developed responsive, increasingly sophisticated data visualizations and maps that let users explore and compare detailed public health information across more than 65 health factors and outcomes for more than 3,000 counties. Our decade plus relationship is a great example of the impact that can be made when great teams collaborate!

AARP Livability Index

Gold – Website & Mobile Sites – Health / Fitness / Wellness

AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. Within the organization, the AARP Public Policy Institute maintains the AARP Livability Index, a key tool in their mission to promote the development of sound, creative policies to address common needs for economic security, health care, and quality of life.

Forum One helped the AARP Livability Index meet the needs of its audiences with an easier-to-use website and accessible data that informs consumer and policy decisions nationwide.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Search Tool

Silver – Website & Mobile Sites – Government

With over 100 federal agencies subject to FOIA requests and hundreds of FOIA offices whose records are not connected, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)  teamed up with Forum One and our partner, Polydelta, to produce an innovative new search tool that prioritizes an enhanced customer experience in order to increase government transparency.

The FOIA Search Tool applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to make it simpler for citizens to navigate the complex FOIA system via a friendly, more conversational interface. Launched in 2023, the DOJ called this search wizard “one of the most significant improvements” to FOIA.gov since 2018.

Congressional District Health Dashboard

Silver – Website & Mobile Sites – Health / Fitness / Wellness

The new Congressional Health Dashboard provides policymakers and policy advocates with health data to inform policy decisions affecting health outcomes. It provides data for all U.S. congressional districts, expanding the geographic coverage of its sister site, the City Health Dashboard.

Forum One built the site with the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health. 

The site presents data for more than 35 health-related metrics for all U.S. Congressional Districts. Site visitors can browse the data at the national and district level via Metric Maps or review all metric values for individual districts via Congressional District Snapshots.

USAID Digital Development

Silver – Website & Mobile Sites – Government

Forum One worked with USAID’s Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub to create the brand-new digitaldevelopment.org, a one-stop-shop for resources on digital country ecosystems for USAID missions and partners, researchers, and development practitioners.

International development practitioners require access to up-to-date data, evidence, and resources to understand the dynamic digital ecosystems of the countries where they work. With no centralized place to find this information, these practitioners had been spending more time than necessary trying to find information on their country’s digital ecosystem. 

NMAAHC Simmons Talks

Silver – Virtual / Remote Experience – Arts & Culture

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Simmons Talks series connects audiences with individuals of singular vision, intellect, courage, compassion, and historical and contemporary significance and creates an opportunity for the Museum to connect with its audiences outside of the structure of a visit to the museum. Endowed by Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the talks named in her honor feature discussions with African American innovators in art, business, science, literature, medicine, social justice, technology, and more.

Forum One partnered with the Museum to develop a visual brand system for the event in addition to visual assets that were used across the Museum’s digital channels and in person at the event. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We’d like to thank our Forum One team members and client partners who work daily to create impact. Each of these projects serves a critical purpose, whether it’s fighting to protect our environment, ensure transparency in our government, solve complex community health problems, and more.

We’d also like to thank our friends at the Vega Awards for the great honor and platform to celebrate so many impactful projects!