Queens University Website
Great sites don’t get built alone.
The previous Queens University website had long passed its expiration date. Folks across programs and departments found it difficult to add necessary content, and navigating the pages that did exist was a challenge. As appealing as the new Queens site is visually, its cleaned up architecture and easy-to-use backend are just as important. The variety we built into the site’s new component library allowed content across pages to remain fresh while maintaining the turnkey flexibility Queens was after.
CUSTOM COMPONENTS
The component library we used to build pages across this site allows Queens to mix things up while easily building pages throughout their digital experience.
SAAS-WORTHY NAV
The new Queens University site showcases new drop down menus, featuring a collection of minimalist icons that have their very own cool little hover state animation.
The new Queens brand makes its introduction.
With a bold typographic treatment introducing new visitors to the new Queens University brand, we maxed out our contrast for legibility over a moving video background.
Translating the brand’s bold color palette for digital
Featuring a mix of classic colors and the introduction of a new vibrant palette, we also utilized neutral colors to bring in a sense of depth throughout the user experience while also allowing the bolder colors to stand out when the time is right.
Our illustration library helps make content more relatable.
Our admissions content is intentionally lighthearted and informative. Design-wise we also broke up longer-form content with the brand’s new illustration library.
Top-of-page title animations provide a sense of place.
The brand’s engaging personality carried over into various animation styles that enliven even the most basic pages of content–providing signature moments and breathing new interactive life into brand elements that, up until this point, were largely static.
SCROLL ANIMATIONS
Scroll animations throughout the site give a sense of movement and progress as a visitor moves through the site, along with adding a nice, considered feeling to even the most basic of pages.
DYNAMIC CONTENT
By combining our various components and animations the Queens site offers a visually interesting experience as you move through its content.
Subtle animations greet viewers as they reach new content but then settle to get out of the way of the user-experience.
We created a shared sandbox for quicker collaboration.
By writing (and editing) into a predetermined design we were able to make revisions within the context of how the content would be received.
Along the way, the team at Queens were great partners and we appreciated their willingness to dial up the finishing touches that really make the difference between doing the assignment and exceeding expectations.
Altogether, the various modalities of the new Queens brand allow for a variety of layout combinations across a solid library of section styles. This combination of structure and design variance provides the Queens site with no shortage of options to combine in interesting ways to keep content feeling interesting and fresh.
The site’s various components allow for building out content rich pages, whether they are driven by photography, statistics, or editorial content.
“it’s been great to WATCH THE EVOLUTION AND IT’S STILL HAPPENING ALMOST A FULL YEAR POST LAUNCH.”
Not only does the new Queens site look great, but it also functions great. As Queens Associate Director, Website Strategy, Julie Thoman stated, “If you are getting 50 of the same question in a semester, let’s put it on the website.”
This ability to update content to fit the needs of the community is making a huge difference. “You see the lightbulbs go off,” stated Thoman on how faculty and staff are realizing all the ways the new site’s content management system is useful to them moving forward.
Along with a full suite of branded admissions materials, the new Queens site provides a hard-working digital destination for Queens students, past, present, and future.