Cambridge Business Development Center

Clip [ CBDC ]

This design for CBDC replaced their existing design that was a mixture of inconsistent formatting, unnecessary dynamic elements and plain style and layout.  The new design had two goals — to retain and restructure the information-based content, to transform existing logos and styles.

Cambridge Business Development Center

The first concern was the logo and how to brand the site in a new way with existing shapes.  First came the tilt and crop.  This somewhat concealed the clumsy nature of the logo, while giving it a new sense of dynamism.  Wrapping the logo in a face plate provided an instant colour impact on the page and allows for a future change of logo without a huge rebranding effort.

[ Logo Transition ]

Snapshot 1: A.  The logo as it existed on the old web site.  B.  The logo redefined as a face plate for the new site.

As some CBDC programs are held in locations other than their Central Square office, a map style was drafted to provide a basic overview of each location’s immediate surroundings.  Colours similar to the page design were picked so as to maintain continuity of the design as a whole.

[ Map Example ]

Snapshot 2:  Map pointing the way to the MIT Faculty Club.

The page has a three-colour scheme.  A light grey backdrop with a subtle top-to-bottom gradient, blue-green headings to match the logo area, and bright green links.  The harmony of colours make for pleasant reading and searching, adding colour to the text-dominated site.

[ Page Snapshot ]

Snapshot 3:  Example Page

Presentation

A simple variation of the face plate was created for presentations that would be ’net delivered (as opposed to projector-based).  A view of Cambridge from behind Boston’s new Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge was assimilated with the logo.  The design was then cut leaving a striking border.

[ Presentation Snapshot ]

Snapshot 4:  Presentation Logo (reproduced here with a lower colour depth)

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