Creating a website ecosystem for a fine arts college
Client: The College of Fine & Applied Arts, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This multi-year project was a career milestone. I led discovery efforts and collaborated across disciplines to design scalable content within a strategic CMS. It represents the kind of systems thinking and cross-functional collaboration that now define my approach to content strategy.
The challenge
The College of Fine & Applied Arts came to us for a multisite approach - they wanted shared infrastructure but knew each unit needed to maintain its distinct identity. Each unit operated independently, creating inconsistent content and fragmented user experiences, but college leadership understood they needed to balance cohesion with individuality.
The discovery
My work on FAA began during the sales process, where I estimated the content strategy work and designed the approach. I represented content strategy and UX in presentations and led exploratory meetings with stakeholders.
The foundation of the project work was a comprehensive discovery phase with each FAA unit. Rather than focusing on what each unit thought they needed, I used a wide-lens approach, treating the entire college as a complete ecosystem rather than 8 separate entities.
The strategic challenge: The College of Fine & Applied Arts came to us for a multisite approach - they wanted shared infrastructure but knew each unit needed to maintain its distinct identity. The real challenge was designing components flexible enough to serve different content needs while remaining purposeful rather than generic.
The "toolbox + palette" solution: Through discovery across all eight units, I identified both shared needs (showcasing student work, highlighting facilities, integrating social media) and unique content requirements. This led to our approach: shared components (the toolbox) that could be styled with each unit's visual palette and configured for their specific content types.
For example, our gallery component needed to work equally well for Theatre's production photos, Architecture's project documentation, and Music's performance videos - same underlying functionality, different presentations and content structures.
The collaborative solution
From there, I worked closely with Pixo designers and developers to make strategic decisions about the front-end design and back-end interface. Each of these phases involved collaboration with stakeholders and audiences to uncover and prioritize needs and goals.
Technical collaboration:
Content modeling: I created detailed specifications for how content types would relate across units (faculty collaborating across departments, shared facilities, cross-listed courses)
Component design: Working with developers, I designed flexible content components that could adapt to different unit needs without breaking the underlying system
Migration strategy: I planned the transition from 8 separate systems, working with both technical teams and content authors to ensure nothing valuable was lost
Key strategic decisions:
Scalable components that worked across all unit sites while catering to different content needs (e.g. a flexible "gallery" component that showcases student work, faculty research, and facilities with equal effectiveness)
Content models that connected rather than separated units—enabling cross-departmental faculty profiles, shared event listings, and collaborative program information
Governance framework that maintained unit autonomy while ensuring college-wide coherence
Webinar that focuses on the FAA project as a case study, 2022
Implementation & cross-functional partnership
Working with a visual designer:
Ensured content-first designs that prioritized user tasks over aesthetic preferences
Collaborated on component specifications that would work across diverse content types
Made decisions about new components based on actual content needs, not hypothetical scenarios
Working with developers:
Created detailed content models and technical specifications that influenced the WordPress multisite architecture
Troubleshot implementation challenges in real-time during development
Ensured the CMS interface would work for content authors with varying technical skills
The results
The redesigned College of Fine & Applied Arts online presence unified eight independent websites into a cohesive WordPress multisite that supports its students, programs, and mission.
outcomes:
Each unit site retains its unique identity (see the Department of Theatre or Department of Landscape Architecture sites) while benefiting from shared, scalable components
The shared codebase and workflows reduced development time and empowers content authors to keep the site up-to-date and relevant
The content is structured to meet audience-specific needs, improving clarity and usability of the information
The college can adapt and expand their web presence using the established component framework
Content authors developed expertise in strategic content decisions within their units
What trial & error taught me
This project taught me the art of designing flexible components that aren't so generic they lose impact. Working across eight different units, I refined our shared component library over and over - making thoughtful decisions about what should be configurable versus standardized.
The gallery component, for instance, needed to showcase Theatre's dramatic production photos, Architecture's technical project documentation, and Music's video performances effectively. Too specific and it wouldn't work across units; too generic and it wouldn't serve anyone well. The key was identifying the underlying content patterns and designing for those.
Why this matters to me
This project demonstrates how content strategy can be organizational strategy. By treating content as a system that reflects how people actually collaborate and learn, we also built a site infrastructure that enables the college to evolve and grow.
The approach: Start with discovery that looks beyond stated needs to uncover actual user behavior and organizational relationships. Then design content systems that make those relationships visible and actionable.