ActaVictoriana.ca

Services provided: Design — Development — Implementation

Main page — 2010 redesign

2008/09 design

Functionality

Acta Victoriana already had a functioning website, containing the journal itself, submission forms and guidelines, the journal's history and past submissions from notable contributors. In addition to a visual redesign, the editorial board stressed the importance of being able to update the site themselves. Their existing site was built entirely in Flash, making them dependent on an external web developer to make any changes.

Solution

I implemented WordPress as a content-management system, to allow easy updating by all members of the board. I also simplified the previously labyrinthine method of navigating through issue content, to improve accessibility and prepare for the addition of several back issues of the journal.

Design

Acta Victoriana's current site design was attractive, but several years old, and the editorial board felt its purple, black and grey colour scheme was too dark. Additionally, the menu layout needed an update, both to be more accessible and to accomodate the new content.

Solution

I based the new design on the 2008/09 journal, using its cover illustration as the main graphic and its cream and brown colour scheme. The layout was completely restructured to allow for a larger menu and plenty of whitespace. A priority was to simplify changing the main graphic and colour scheme to match future covers. This paid off when I updated the design in 2010 to match the 2009/10 issue, as the change was a very easy task.