Synopsis

NYU-SCPS, New York University’s Professional School, consisting of 17 school departments offering unique curriculum was in search of a contract Information Architect to jumpstart their school’s redesign process. More than 5000 pages of content existing in disorganized fashion needed to be organized and ported over into a new design. My resulting contract with both NYU and Format Studios lasted a year and saw my role expand beyond an IA to contribute as an Art Director.

My team consisted of a mixture of permanent NYU employees, writers and producers, and contractors who handled the project management, design process and development. Initially, I developed wireframes. Nevertheless, I eventually found myself in the design driver’s seat, refining my process as an I.A. and overhauling the design for a sharper, more modern look that embraced recent developments with CSS3 and HTML5. The website was developed using Adobe’s DAY/CQ5 content management platform.

My first major project in the educational sector since college, my team actively consulted with school leadership, internal marketing in what was a highly defined and well paced process (certainly a big departure from the iterative process start-ups embrace).

Nevertheless, the complexities of the school itself proved quite a challenge to design around. This included developing a visual language that not only served NYU-SCPS as a larger body, but also developing a design infrastructure that would remain consistent but offer each of the 17 school’s departments their own breathing room with satellite sites.