For this project I took on the role of Lead Designer for Putnam County Economic Development Corporation's (PCEDC) rebranding and website redesign. After working for them as a freelance graphic designer creating print and digital ads, I had the opportunity to propose a fresh look that would both renew their aesthetics, and make it easier for other employees at PCEDC to create their own designs while retaining a strong branding cohesion.
My first step in reworking PCEDC's homepage was to truly understand what was and what was not working, and to understand PCEDC's prime goals. After observing and analyzing, I set three main objectives: consolidation, prioritization, and brand cohesion.
Original Sketch
During the wireframing stage, I focused on the first two of my three goals: consolidation and prioritization. An organization like PCEDC has a lot of documentation and information on its website which needs to be compartmentalized for easier searchability. I broke it down into three main categories, ordered in importance: Business Resources (incentives and programs), Business Features (PCEDC news updates and articles), and County Exploration (anything that informs visitors about the county itself). From these categories I was able to organize the different rows of the new homepage.