A simplification of a previous design, removing iterative in-house design changes and inconsistencies which had eroded the overall integrity of the site.
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is a not-for-profit international development organization charity. I first redesigned the VSO website in 2016 – when the main objective was to improve the recruitment of highly skilled professionals for volunteering, simplify the navigation, and present a simpler, bolder, more confident aesthetic.
New Objectives
The 2019 redesign set out to streamline some design patterns which had evolved and multiplied since 2016 leading to a bloated pattern library and numerous inconsistencies. Many small, in-house design decisions had been made since 2016 leading to design elements that no longer worked together, colours clashed, and a lot of black had been overused leading to quite a dark and slightly ominous feel in places.
Deliverables
- Design mock-ups of components
- Design mock-ups of key page types
- Art direction over build
Design Challenges
One of the main challenges was to track down all the patterns which had evolved by doing a full audit across the site identifying where and why duplicates had appeared. The subsequent challenge was to rationalise the duplicates to identify whether there were good reasons for their existence.
Fixing Page Narratives
Since the 2016 design had launched, a lot of use had been made of coloured 50/50 image/text panels. Whilst a pleasing occasional element, they had been overused so that whole pages had been built resulting in detached panels of content which were acting poorly with where a joined up message was important. I redesigned these panels to be much simpler, removing the left/right alternating position instead allowing the text to read down a single left-hand column with less space separating and therefore potentially breaking the narrative flow of the page.
Design Library
Although the final pattern library was handed over using Fractal, initial patterns were designed and presented with Figma.
