In 2014, Willamette University’s website and marketing material did not accurately reflect its unique personality or align with the university’s strategic goal: “Become the Northwest’s leading institution for rigorous, personalized liberal arts and graduate professional education, attractive to students and faculty from across the nation and around the world." My team was hired to redesign the website and establish a new marketing and design direction.
Discover
As the creative director, I co-lead the discovery and research efforts alongside a marketing counterpart. My efforts included:
Competitive research
Online surveys
On-site key stakeholder meetings & focus groups
On-site creative exploratory workshops
Internal working sessions
Through the discovery process, we were able to uncover the Willamette Originals, unique characteristics we could feature to differentiate Willamette from other universities.
Define, develop and deliver
Armed with our findings, I lead a cross-functional team through the exploratory design process resulting in a content and design strategy. Our initial solution included a content strategy, information architecture, wireframes and design intent. We validated and iterated the design with usability testing and focus groups. Our final solution was based on a template design utilizing an atomic design system (reusable modules and components).
