RCF is excited to announce the launch of the new cmom.com for the Children’’s Museum of Memphis. The Museum was looking for an improved user experience, a fresh design and a content management system. Some of the improved features are a new internal search, a new calendar and an improved process for making donations and purchasing memberships.

the design process

To kick off the redesign, I started by reviewing the current site along with the client. We defined a few things that they wanted to do better. Our main concerns were based around usability, interaction and color. We also wanted to take advantage of some of the great photography that the museum already had. Our first point to address was to sites usability. We had to make the information easier to find, so before we ever started exploring color schemes or typography styles, we set out to create a clear and easy to understand architecture for the information. The decision was made to use a top navigation and nest subcategories under one of seven navigation titles. Additionally we identified a few areas of the site that we wanted to call out on the homepage and a few areas of the site that would be needed on every page. Once the structure of the navigation, homepage and footer started to take shape, we were ready to start developing the sites look and feel.

After exploring a few different visual directions, I decided to present two designs to the museum’’s staff. The first had an open feel, vibrant colors, geometric shapes and a focus on negative space. The second design had more tightly defined spaces, more dimension, and more texture. After presenting the comps, the staff at the museum all agreed the the first design was a better fit for their brand and their audience, and I agreed 100%.

Next we started to refine the color scheme. After trying a variety of colors pallets, we found a good mixture of colors that complemented the primary colors from the logo, but also gave the site a little more of a sophisticated look and feel.

After a homepage layout and a color pallete was set, the next step was to design a few landing page templates. Studying the information that the museum wanted on these pages, I set out to design a template for pages that would primarily hold information, image heavy pages, and pages that needed to promote a primary action. With all this in hand, It was time to move into building out the HTML and CSS and implement a content management system. In my next post I will write more about why I picked Drupal, and how I am using Google Calendar, Google Maps, Flash and jQuery on the new site.