STEM Website & Digital Campaign
SCU’s new, state-of-the-art building features flexible labs, collaboration hubs and its own Innovation Zone. It needed a shiny new website and digital assets - fast.
Website timeline: 1 month total, start to finish, including development
My Role: Principle designer (only designer)
Team size: Web manager, developer, designer (me), copywriter, project manager, university consultants
Deliverables: Award-winning STEM website, digital ads and assets
Marketing goals
Show off the many parts and features of the new building
Uses Collaborate, Connect and Create theme
Highlight SCU’s STEM stories and people
Unique university challenges
Accelerated time constraints and CMS limitations
Building’s interior features were still being installed
Photoshoots of the space were delayed and being completed as website was being developed
Building a foundation
Our team narrowed the focus down to three main purposes for the building that we used to weave together a visual and copywriting theme:
Collaborate - Students and faculty from various disciplines come together in intentional spaces
Connect - with the vast network of Silicon Valley
Create - to solve world problems, with the end user in mind
Shaping a visual theme
From the beginning, I found inspiration in the architectural textures of the gorgeous building itself, which we were allowed to tour before it opened.
I also asked for architectural plans and renderings of the art and displays that would go inside. From there, I developed a visual direction.
The ceiling’s geometric grid and bar pattern stood out to me, as well as the circles and organic lines elsewhere in the building.
Textures, patterns & strong typography
I love creating patterns, and this project was the perfect opportunity. I created custom patterns inspired by the building’s interior architecture, which I had toured and photographed, and used it in conjunction with the typography and colors to tell the story.
I tried a lot of different looks for SCDI, but in the end, simple and tightly branded worked best. I chose three colors from the University palette and assigned each to a theme word.
Website goals
Custom, design-focused site that can be used as a marketing piece, directed toward potential students
Show off the many pieces of the new building with Collaborate, Connect and Create themed sub-pages
Highlight SCU’s STEM stories and people
Keep custom elements doable for the developer within the CMS and time constraints
Condensing 270k square feet of amazing science into 4 pages
Breaking down a dynamic building, and many pages of notes, into visually digestible nuggets was tough, but eventually, after lots of research, I settled on a working basic page template and pitched it to our team.
Shown are my initial wireframes, where I am collaborating with our writer and solidifying design plans.
It was a kind of chicken-and-egg situation, with our team brainstorming, me iterating, and finally landing on tight solutions.
Final Website
STEM landing
Implemented new font and custom text sizing, as well as custom design elements
Collaborate subpage
Custom javascript with developer helped add subtle zoom movement to the split-layout sections
STEM - Digital assets & advertisements
Before and after the website launch, I was busy creating digital assets for both internal audiences, and digital ads to be placed in higher-ed digital magazines.
Display screen and Zoom templates
Instagram stories and post templates
Digital ads for multiple higher-ed publications
Conclusion
Overall, I was able to contribute to almost every aspect of this project, for which me and my team won a 2022 District VII CASE award. In addition to being the sole designer, I enjoyed working closely with our web manager and developer, and helped direct photography. I also dabbled in the web content writing, collaborating with our fantastic writers, and learned from our colleagues in STEM about this unique and breathtaking new space.
