The portfolio of Nicholas Allen Schmitz

Business Development Bank of Canada

Climate Action Centre Website

Agency:

Addison/Sia

The Client

The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) is a Crown corporation providing financing and advisory services to Canadian small and medium-sized businesses. Its mandate focuses on supporting growth, innovation, and long-term sustainability for entrepreneurs nationwide.

The Ask

BDC’s Climate Action Center set out to create a digital ecosystem that would educate and enable SMEs to take meaningful climate action. The challenge was to design a clear, engaging platform that delivered tailored content, practical tools, and solutions, helping businesses reduce their carbon footprint while encouraging measurable, real-world impact.

We applied an interpolation method across the entire design, from the grid system and spacing to typography, creating a truly fluid system. By defining only the minimum and maximum values, everything in between is automatically determined based on the viewport size. This approach optimizes the layout, requiring minimal to no adjustments for different screen sizes.

The typography choices adhered to the principles set forth in the master BDC brand guidelines.

The color palette followed the principles outlined in the master BDC brand guidelines, with further refinement of the rules to suit the specific needs of the Climate Action Center.

A hierarchy of image and illustration styles was established to differentiate specific categories. Four distinct levels were developed, ranging from highly conceptual to very literal representations.

For the highest level, called "Subtopics," a series of illustrative patterns were developed to represent each section, such as process optimization and transportation management.

For the highest level, called "Subtopics," a series of illustrative patterns were developed to represent each section, such as process optimization and transportation management.

For the third level, "Articles and Content," BDC's photo library was incorporated to support the creation of a variety of content and articles.

Finally, for the fourth level, "Resources," simple typography was employed to ensure clarity and a literal representation of the content.

With all these elements in our toolbox, we developed a large set of reusable components, fully functional and implemented in a way that allowed anyone to create a wide variety of layouts and pages without the need for new or custom components.

By combining these various elements and components with a strong user experience and content strategy, we created an experience designed for rapid growth and easy expansion. This approach ensures scalability while maintaining a seamless and engaging user journey.

The Action Advisor is an interactive questionnaire tool designed to help users navigate and identify specific resources tailored to their business needs. By answering a series of questions, users are directed to relevant content, tools, and solutions that align with their unique challenges and goals.

A wide variety of page templates were created to align with the content strategy, featuring interactive widgets, deep-dive content, stats and charts, articles, and more. These templates are designed to accommodate a diverse range of content and enhance user engagement.