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Colossal: Part 3

Crafting Colossal’s Whimsical Web

Oct 16, 2024 – by Dean Sweetnich

Approach—

By now you should know, Colossal + Firebelly = <3

After powering through a brand strategy and identity, we set our sights on Colossal’s great digital publication, thi​sis​colos​sal​.com, breathing life into the website that was built nearly a decade prior. Our strategic foundation provided us with key goals for the website: retain the attention of a broader audience, craft a more intuitive user experience, and carve space in the navigation for future business growth.

Colossal’s platform shared worlds upon worlds of beauty but, their prior single-scrolling web page did not fully demonstrate their depth and constant dedication to the craft. The website was many things to different people: to some, a personal meditation where users perused the site like a morning paper, and for others a trusted educational resource to catalog articles as quick references. Yet for all users, the experience was one thing — hard to navigate. In the site redesign, we wanted to harness the morning paper mentality of the user base, a cereal bowl of art if you will, chock-full of inspiration.

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Process—

At every stage, collaborating with the Colossal team was a playful interchange of ideas, yes, ands” and how might we’s” — no idea too wild to consider and we tossed every idea into a bucket. Wrangling user groups, outlining goals and navigation, defining missed opportunities, all happened while capturing a suite of new features that we could design now and in the future. The ideation planted a plethora of seeds for our beloved wireframes to grow.

Harness the morning paper mentality of the user base, a cereal bowl of art, chock-full of inspiration.

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We at Firebelly Industries love our flow charts. Beautiful flow charts that capture user needs and catalog development requirements!
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Beginning from Colossal's information sketches to plan navigation models and taxonomy

Through our conversations, we learned about Colossal’s passion for inspired individuals. We wanted to connect with the wide array of users who flock to Colossal for ideas, community, and play. The new site needed to balance the desires of bright-eyed arts explorers and mission-oriented learners and collectors. 

As a library of art and inspiration, there are thousands of articles to peruse. As we untangled a web of user needs we looked to the site’s organizational structure and taxonomy to ensure content became navigable and clear. A thorough structure that categorized every article, was essential to allow easy navigation for users of all types. Even further, we wanted to create an illuminating home base for explorers to immediately understand the depth that was available to them.

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Design—

After weeks of cleaning up our infrastructure, building the metaphorical beams, and cleaning the baseboards, we still had walls with no paint. We asked ourselves How can we retain the play amidst this library of already clever artwork”?

Throughout the redesign, balancing business opportunities with audience expectations was a functional need, but underneath all of our goals, whimsy and ingenuity hold the soul of Colossal. How can a website shine as a space for arts and humanity? At the simplest level: scale, color, clean typography. We wanted the brand to feel institutional as an art publication while capable of growing in many different ways into the future. Simple shapes and bookish typography grounded a brand system that could feel timeless in both print (fingers crossed!) and digital media.

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Development and final home-run of the website was carried out by the Colossal team and intrepid developer Jordon Rupp.

“…whimsy and ingenuity hold the soul of Colossal. How can a website shine as a space for arts and humanity?”

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Development and final home-run of the website was carried out by the Colossal team and intrepid developer Jordon Rupp.
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Development and final home-run of the website was carried out by the Colossal team and intrepid developer Jordon Rupp.

Closing—

With a bit of thoughtful dreaming, final design of thi​sis​colos​sal​.com successfully enhanced both form and function. The final launch of the website was a home-run thanks to the expertise of intrepid developer Jordon Rupp and passionate leadership from the Colossal team’s Christopher Jobson and Grace Ebert. It can’t be said enough what a joy it is to know and partner with such inspired people and we know for a fact that Colossal will play, grow, and expand now and into the future.

Check it out for yourself: thi​sis​colos​sal​.com!