Establishing a Legacy
Project: Create a home online for Effie Anderson Smith
Client: Effie Anderson Smith Museum and Archive
Role: Graphic Designer, Creative Consultant
Brief
Overview:
Problem:
Solution:
Designing From the Ground Up
Without an interface for the CMS, I worked directly in the code to style and create pages for all the digital programs. I ended up as an important bridge for the developers of the product, the partners using the product, and the marketing team trying to bring the product to the market.
Working within Brands
Each organization not only had different needs, but different brand guidelines. I catered to the styles and direction of each partner I was working with, edited logos, colors, and images, as well as created header banners, icons, and any other asset that was needed to both reflect their brand and fit within the parameters of the system.
Working Smarter AND Harder
In order to meet demand for the partners on board, working quickly wouldn’t be enough. I needed efficiency in communication and workflow to speed up creation and approval process of each program in time for each event.
I wrote functions in Google Sheets to help auto-generate the code for page elements that could be templatized, something that was also public-facing when I needed to filter the assets and input from others on my team. In addition, I brought on another freelance developer and trained them on the system to help me with the workload.
Flexibility within this timeframe was a critical element to maintain without sacrificing quality, since we were essentially creating case studies for how the product should be developed and marketed. Along with the organizations, we were discovering all the possibilities of what we could do now that we could never do previously with printed programs. Simple things like providing links and sponsors were just the start. We could now change things at the last minute — or even LIVE — in an instant if there was something that came up like a casting change.