Biological Sciences homepage redesign

Client: Department of Biological Sciences
Role: Designer and Developer

In January 2020, Purdue Marketing and Media unveiled a new audience-focused brand strategy. Every aspect of the brand changed, including the logo, colors, fonts, graphic elements, photography, and voice/tone. This change applied to every medium, including websites.

At the time, the Biological Sciences department did not have a communications specialist, so I worked with Jennifer, the communications and media coordinator in the College of Science, on this project.

In April, I began updating the Biological Sciences department website to reflect the new Purdue brand. Changes were made to the logo, graphic elements, colors, and fonts. Later that month, Jennifer and I began talking about a homepage redesign per the department head's request. I reviewed the site's analytics data and looked at other Purdue websites for inspiration.

I sketched the proposed layout on paper and then built it on a development site. It has a big hero image, an introduction to the department, several news stories, and additional audience-focused information areas.

In May and June, I had multiple virtual meetings and phone calls with Jennifer. She approved of my homepage design, with some minor changes. In June, the demo page was sent out to the department for approval. The new homepage went live in late June. It is now audience-focused, with improvements in design, information architecture, and usability.