Leá Norcross
Designer | Artist | Maker
REDESIGNING A WEBSITE
Global Practice Bosnia is an international internship program housed at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. When asked to update the information on the program website, I offered to undertake a redesign in order to create a more enticing portal for students seeking information about the program and application process. I also created post card fliers to distribute around campus.
CLIENT | University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work
TARGET USERS | Students interested in interning in Bosnia
PROJECT | Redesign website and create fliers
OBJECTIVES | Aesthetic appeal, well-packaged information, easy application submission
MY ROLE | Initiated and executed redesign
TOOLS | DU Portfolio (proprietary CMS), Microsoft Word
Designing to Spark Interest
Banner Design
I spent a fair amount of time searching for an attractive image that conveyed a sense of place, did not compete with the Banner title, and that fit the specs of the Banner format while still providing enough visual information to be effective.
Landing Page
I wanted the website to serve as an entry point for students interested in the Global Practice Bosnia Program. Many students accessing the site have already attended information sessions or learned about the program through word of mouth, so I designed the landing page with a minimal amount of key content and ensured that it could be seen in its entirety without scrolling:
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Picture of the lead faculty member
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Manifesto of program
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Program dates
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Application deadlines and link to apply
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Syllabus
Students looking for more information or details to feed their excitement can browse additional content in the various tabs I created.
Additional Pages
The GPB website has since undergone new management. These pages represent the work I did when I undertook the initial redesign. Themes throughout the site included:
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Limited color pallet
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Easily recognizable links (pointing icon and blue text)
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Maximizing on images to break up text
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Modern-feeling san serif fonts
Challenges: Designing Restrictions
Working with DU Portfolio
DU Portfolio is an in-house CMS that allows students, staff, and faculty to create Portfolios and resource repositories. The interface is similar to website design software but with limited capabilities and certain restrictions. These were challenges to work around.
BANNER | each portfolio has a banner that can be edited but not removed. For the purposes of this project this simply meant that certain parameters had to be followed when designing the Banner, as I have already described above.
DOCUMENTS | A major obstacle was that the user has no control over how linked documents display. I established blue as my signifier for links throughout the site, but was unable to change the document link from defaulting to a black-red. As a work-around, iI inserted an icon of a document to help indicate that this was a downloadable document.
Marketing
The Design
In addition to some simple fliers, I also designed a postcard that could be easily distributed around campus. I had an opportunity to create something fun and eye-catching.
