TRACE

Two decades of anti-bribery standards

TRACE is a globally recognized anti-bribery business organization and a leading provider of cost-effective third party risk management solutions. For two decades it has helped companies operate ethically while staying competitive across the world, with members and clients in more than 500 multinational companies and multilingual training and due diligence delivered globally.

A modern authority stuck in an old site

TRACE led its category but read like a nonprofit from the early 2000s: an overload of copy, pages ordered in a way users could not follow, and a navigation split down the middle between two business lines. The mandate was a simpler, modern, lead-focused experience that finally looked as sophisticated as the organization.

Three problems defined the work. A nonprofit membership program and a for-profit due diligence practice told as a split rather than a whole. A dated, academic look competing against software-led rivals. And a global community that needed a clear path to inquire, built around lead generation.

One story, one navigation

Before a pixel moved, Ruckus settled the narrative: TRACE is one organization with one mission expressed through two business models. The strategy lets a member and a first-time client each find their own path, membership on the nonprofit side, risk-based, benchmarked due diligence on the for-profit side, without the brand fracturing in two, and points every page toward a single next step: inquire.

The site map was rebuilt around how members and clients actually move, collapsing an overload of pages into six clear destinations under a single navigation: due diligence, membership, compliance training, TASA accreditation, events and webinars, and resources. Each destination has one job and one obvious way forward, from risk-based screening to a multilingual training library that lets companies train an unlimited number of employees and third parties.

Modern, human, global

A serif-and-sans type system pairs an editorial serif for voice with a clean sans for structure, carrying everything from headlines to fine print with the same calm authority, over a cool architectural palette of deep blue, TRACE blue, steel, slate, and warm neutral. Out went the dated abstract buildings; in came sophisticated architecture and infrastructure, real people, and clean space, imagery that signals a modern, international standard rather than an academic institution.

A modern face for a global standard

The rebuilt homepage at traceinternational.org leads with a single, confident positioning line, then hands members and clients directly to membership, due diligence, and compliance training, every path one click from the next step. The result is one website serving both business lines under one story, a complete design system ready to scale, and a lead-focused layout that replaces the dated look with the sophistication of a category leader.