Art Direction, UX Design, Web Design, Content and Editorial Strategy
The Challenge
After redesigning their own brand, the Charles Schwab corporation needed a redesigned corporate website. This website needed to communicate the Charles Schwab brand, but also tell the unique stories of Charles Schwab customers and employees, and give visitors to the site a first-person, relational introduction to the company.
The Solution
The old site was built around a content management system that allowed people on the corporate communications team at Schwab to upload their own content as needed. While this was functionality that still needed to be retained, the actual content on the site hadn’t been maintainedThe first task was to complete a site audit of the content that already existed on the site, to structure that content in a way that made sense and compelled visitors to remain and explore, and to design a new experience, providing a way for content creators to update site content frequently, and a visually engaging interface to house the content. The site needed to communicate the Schwab personality as well as its updated brand. We worked with another partner to develop the site, which went live in June of 2014.
Since then, the site has grown and expanded based on the framework and design patterns I helped establish. Not only that, but the visual voice and personality communicated through the first videos to launch has continued and is present and strong in the multimedia content currently live on the site.
Documentary-style video showcasing the story of a family of Schwab clients:
Documentary-style video showcasing Schwab employee stories and the things that make Schwab a great place to work:
Website design guide delivered to the development team for initial launch:
Older versions of the site were designed to be developed on a platform that did not require a CMS back-end. This is a sample of some of the graphics and layouts from those previous designs. As you can see, while the eventual final layout changed quite a bit, the live site has retained some of the design patterns and elements from these early explorations.
