Project Type: Interaction Design, UI Design, Wiringframing, Visual Design
Project Type: Interaction Design, UI Design, Wiringframing, Visual Design
I was the lead visual designer on this project and was responsible for the creation and implementation of design choices throughout the entire project from wireframes to completed design.
Skysong Innovations
Fall 2017-Spring 2018
Pinkston Digital
Adobe XD
Adobe CC
Create a website that reflects the position and expertise of Skysong Innovations as the go-to leader for Arizona State University Technology Transfers. Redesign and elevate the brand of Skysong Innovations to be more streamlined with the cutting-edge technology companies it is aligned with.
One major challenge this project faced was to uncover a way to sort and display the wealth of information surrounding the technologies and startups represented by Skysong Innovations.
Throughout the course of this project, I worked as part of a small creative team at the Pinkston Group (a design director, lead designer, and two developers) to overhaul the design of the existing Skysong Innovations website. The redesign included the execution of a more interactive design while focusing on better user experiences for individuals and making accessing important information about creating technologies with Skysong Innovations easier.
This section explores the process behind the final design for Skysong Innovations. This portion details my involvement with the project and my process.
My involvement with this project began with a kickoff meeting with my design director. We discussed the goals of the project and held a brainstorming session where we discussed gut ideas, directions, and how those aligned with the goals of the client.
As a part of the creative process for this project, I completed a review of the competitors and identified their strengths and weaknesses and used that information in the formation of my design concepts for the project.
I developed two initial moodboards for the client that explored creative directions that this project could take. These concepts were presented to the client, and while they liked both, it wasn't quite what they were looking for. Taking into account client feedback, I created a third creative direction that melded the two concepts together (middle).
One unique challenge this project presented was how to take Skysong Innovations, a company backed by Arizona State University, and position it as an industry leader in technology transfers through compelling graphics.
This led to an exploration through wireframing to find the best way to visually display key data points that highlight the success of Skysong Innovations and the startups they work with in a way that is both compelling and interactive.
As the visual side of the design began to take shape through the wireframes, I switched my attention to another crucial area of the design. This area, the information management system, would allow users to easily view and sort through the thousands of startups and technologies that Skysong Innovations has worked with.
Information management can be seen in two places within the overarching design of the site. On the Startup Listing page and the Browse Technology page. These pages focused on a few key features: the ability to quickly sort through listings, tagging or technologies, and easily accessible information.
These pages allow users to access information they are searching for in a quick and effective manner and help to eliminate user frustration when searching for this helpful and valuable information.
The Startup Listing page allows users to search for information in two ways, via an interactive map as well as an alphabetized list with easy search by letter functions.
The Browse Technologies pages posed a more complex sorting problem. This page allows users to search technologies through tagging. Users can search through technologies by category or by inventor. Users can also set up personalized alerts to get the most up-to-date information when a new technology is added to the database.
The design directions presented to the client had an emphasis on data visualization. The client provided many compelling data points to create a narrative about the impact of the company and the work it does to help get technology startups up off the ground.
As I moved forward with the data visualization, I designed these elements in a way that would allow users of the website to interact with it. The focus of this data was to tell the story of how Skysong has grown to solidify its position as an industry leader of innovation in the world of technology startups.
The project wrapped up in the spring of 2018 with the launch of the revamped Skysong Innovations website. This project took the newly designed brand direction, created at Pinkston Digital, and applied it in a cohesive manner across multiple platforms and media types, including the newly designed web presence. The website portion of the project achieved three key points (to the right).
The website design I worked on is still in use today and can be viewed here.
Apply the newly design Skysong Innovations brand in a cohesive manner
Explore ways in which users can interact with visualizations of data
Design a solution that allows users to easily navigate a multitude of important information.
