Website, Marketing
2019-2021
Acquia is a leader in the Cloud Hosting, Site creation and management, and demand generation spaces. Many big names run on Drupal, which was created by one of their Founders. They hired me in 2019 to help update and support their website and other assets. I originally worked directly with the web ops team but in 2020 I moved to the Brand team to assist with a major overhaul and redesign of the website.
The B2B software industry is a tough and saturated field, making it hard to stand out. Though Acquia is a strong brand with unique flavor, their website was a mishmash of different styles. Being a large company having experienced massive growth, the site was a bit like building the plane mid-flight. My first goal was to clean up the weakest parts of the site and bring everything in line with the brand. I utilized brand elements like their font Proxima Nova, the slash, the drop, and the gradient "flow".
Acquia.com is a big site, with a lot of pages, and with a small web ops team with a huge backlog to support it. This meant, initially, that I had to focus on making the biggest impact I could with the limited resources we had. Most of my designs weren't going to get updated until two quarters out, so I had to design for the future as well as the present state of the company. I took this opportunity to push the brand to be stronger and more unique with the elements that make it stand out. This all shifted when the company decided to do a major overhaul of the site, using a strong redesign from Third & Grove, a Boston based agency. Following their lead I assisted in updating pages, and contributing to their design system when gaps were discovered.
Though much of my earlier work for Acquia was replaced in the redesign. I had a hand in shaping it's new look. I contributed to building page layouts and contributing to the design system. Acquia.com's new look is fresh and clean and reflects the strong branding. Much of my work is still reflected in marketing materials such as banners, emails, social assets, and downloadables.
I designed components that fit and work well at all screen sizes, to capture leads from a wider audience.
Utilizing brand elements I gave site components and other assets a fresh and uniquely branded look.
Usability is paramount to a websites success. I utilized best practices and tapped ux resources in the company to deliver the best experience.
For certain components like the button slide rollover I created small demos with html and css to help the web ops team speed up their development.
I created marketing materials like, emails, web banners, and social assets to promote the website and their conference, Engage.