I was given the opportunity to create the landing page for the 2015 MICA Graphic Design MFA cohort. The goal that I set out to achieve with this year’s website was two fold:

 

1. Stay in line with the minimalism of the previous year’s designs, as well as the focus on featuring the designers rather than just the projects.
2. Somehow also include a additional components such as project imagery, longer descriptions, and links to the designers portfolios.

 

Working with classmate Lolo Zhang to capture headshots for each designer, I asked each student to provide a accent color—generally a color important to their thesis project—which would be used as a background for their headshots as well link color on their overlays.

 

The website features portraits of each student. Hovering over a portrait will change the student’s name to their project title as well as switch out the portrait to a secondary portrait. Clicking on an individual will open an overlay that holds the links to their portfolios, thesis websites, thesis books, as well as features a subtle background image of their thesis project. Through a little custom Javascript I created a feature that would enable a student to link directly to their overlay, as well as enable keyboard navigation when the student overlay was open.

 

Lastly, I created a short promotional video to promote the website and our work through the various social media outlets we use such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.