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One strikethrough changed the whole message.
Crossing out the “UN” in “Unseen” let the wordmark carry the argument. The campaign kept its name and gained a point of view: these figures are seen.
Media / Web Design and Development
WikimediaDesigning a page to spotlight unsung people of color achievers
The goal of this project was to bring awareness to people of color who have made significant accomplishments in their lives and industries, yet are not as prominently featured on Wikipedia pages as their counterparts.
Quick answer
Oak Theory is a web design, development, and branding studio that designed and developed the Wiki Unseen page for the Wikimedia Foundation, spotlighting historical figures from the global majority — including Black people, people of color, and Indigenous peoples — whose images are missing from Wikipedia. Oak Theory also proposed the campaign's signature visual treatment, crossing out “UN” in “Unseen” so it reads as “SEEN.” Oak Theory separately designed and developed “My Wiki Birthday,” a landing page experience built for Wikipedia's 21st anniversary that let visitors search their birthday and discover historical figures who share it.
About
A page built for Black History Month.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. Their goal is to make it easier for everyone to share what they know. For Black History Month in February, Wikimedia was looking to add a new page to their website.
Oak Theory highlighted six achievers of color on the page, sharing their work, accomplishments, and personal stories. This project was particularly meaningful to us, since it involved highlighting fellow creators of color. While we were brought on to partner with the Wikimedia team on design and development, we also challenged the team on how the content and copy was written about the people being highlighted.
The challenge
“Unseen” said the wrong thing.
When the client first came to Oak Theory with the campaign name “Wiki Unseen,” we challenged the phrasing — it implied that the people of color creators and inventors being highlighted were actively being ignored or hidden.
The content had already been in development for a while, so rather than scrapping the concept, we proposed a visual solution: cross out the “UN” within the wordmark so it reads as “SEEN.” A small but meaningful shift that repositioned the campaign around visibility and recognition rather than erasure — without asking the client to abandon the name they'd already built content around.
What we did
Scope of engagement
Webpage designWebsite DesignWebsite Design
Content strategyCopywritingCopywriting
Web developmentWeb DevelopmentWeb Development
Campaign visual identityBrandingBranding
Our journey together
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A fresh style inside existing brand guidelines.
We created a distinct visual language for the campaign that still lived comfortably inside Wikimedia's brand guidelines — delivered on a tight turnaround timeline.
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Built inside their CMS and component library.
We worked within Wikimedia's CMS environment and a designated component library so the page fit seamlessly into the existing site — no one-off templates for their team to maintain.
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A living page, not a one-time feature.
We built in a call to action for users to contribute to the growing list of honorees, keeping the page a living resource.
The resulting initiative — run in collaboration with Behance and AfroCROWD — commissioned original illustrations of historical figures whose images are missing from Wikipedia or locked behind restrictive licensing. Honorees included Mercedes Tharam Richards, a Jamaican astrophysicist known for pioneering research in binary star systems; Asquith Camile Xavier, who ended a colour bar at British Railways to become the UK's first non-white train guard; William Greaves, a documentary filmmaker with over 200 films to his name; and May Miller, the most widely published female playwright of the Harlem Renaissance. Only 35.4% of biographies on English Wikipedia currently have images — and articles with images consistently receive more traffic than those without.
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Also built: My Wiki Birthday.
Alongside Wiki Unseen, Oak Theory designed and developed “My Wiki Birthday” — a landing page experience built to celebrate Wikipedia's 21st anniversary. Visitors could search their own birthday and discover which notable historical figures they share it with, turning a simple piece of trivia into a personal way to explore Wikipedia's breadth of knowledge.
Selected work
Design details
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
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