Zeichenfabrik

Analysis of the existing site

The head of the Zeichenfabrik, Christian Dewanger, visited me in the studio, wanting to optimize the institution's website at the time. The school is one of Austria's leading institutions for private art and creative education and further training. Since the courses can be booked online, the design and functionality of the site were to be improved.

As a former student of several art schools, I already had experience with how art institutions present themselves, and I brought this knowledge into my analysis. My suggestions were based partly on the way the institution talked about art, but also on the general presentation of the school and its offerings. At first I had the impression that the school was mainly trying to capitalize on people's desire to learn creativity. However, as several conversations gave me better insight into the philosophy and approaches of the management and the school, I realized that only a few things were being presented in a somewhat misleading way.

I saw the greatest potential for optimization in a clearer presentation of the institution's core values, in order to get students excited about one of the courses. I recommended a design approach known in America as "first-principles design". According to it, all questions, whether they concern the layout, the copy or the images of the site, are subordinate to fundamental principles.

Web to Print

We decided to build the institution's entire corporate identity on first-principles design and, with the help of the programmers at edgy circle, to develop a new web platform. It is meant to express the school's new concept and direction and to apply the verbal and visual principles we worked out together; in short, how to communicate with the students.