Problem: In early 2007, Veer brought together a team of developers and designers. Their task was to rebuild the “ideas” section which was hugely popular with its customer. Content included free wallpaper, a catalog archive and The Skinny, a blog designed in 2002 when the company was started. The primary goal of the redesign was to build affinity for the Veer brand by showcasing the creativity of the design community and the company’s product offerings.
Challenges: This section was created in 2002 and hadn’t been updated much since so there were many new features and web conventions to needed to be added. Also, the developers chose to work with a new programming language, Ruby. There was no existing platform for user profiles or user interaction, all the content had been static with moderated commenting so we were starting from scratch on building a UI and convention for our users.
Solution: As Creative Director, I managed the design process and worked with another designer on building the navigation and editorial grids. The grid was designed for a minimum of 1024 screen resolution and the new stylesheets made for a much friendlier read with larger images to
better showcase all the amazing artwork and photography. Profile pages allowed our customers to post portfolios and or creative content, add bio info and connect with other creatives. We also created a community-based blog that published all the users posts into one blog and was a nice companion to the already popular, The Skinny. Working side by side with developers was a great experience and created a strong appreciation for both perspectives.
