Background
Smart Village is well-known for its business, recreational, and community services ever since its establishment in 2001. After undergoing a recent expansion of services, they rebranded their identity and brand positioning to re-establish themselves in a busy market in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Smart Village is well-known for its business, recreational, and community services ever since its establishment in 2001. After undergoing a recent expansion of services, they rebranded their identity and brand positioning to re-establish themselves in a busy market in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Challenge
They needed a platform where all their communication can be unified into one voice in order to attract more partners, investors, establish easier community booking systems, and have a closer-knitted community. In addition, the platform would serve as a target for all their future media buying and SEO efforts.
They needed a platform where all their communication can be unified into one voice in order to attract more partners, investors, establish easier community booking systems, and have a closer-knitted community. In addition, the platform would serve as a target for all their future media buying and SEO efforts.
My Role
Lead designer on the website design flow, strategy concept, and experience.
Lead designer on the website design flow, strategy concept, and experience.
Research
Holistic research was conducted to fully understand the core-root issues with the brand communication.
After many discussions with clients and stakeholders, one of the main insights I found was the concept of individualization within the community. Each company was part of a network that created the sense of community within Smart Village park. However, even though all companies and individuals occupied the same area of space, they were mostly not aware of any of their surrounding networks.
The website and corresponding newsletter was to be used as a space for announcements where members can stay up-to-date for all forms of communication. New co-working spaces within the park campus were also established to be used for easier collaboration and networking. A business directory was also created in order to document all the companies present on campus with their contact details.
Brand strategy and architecture by Reem Marei
Reem Marei, senior graphic designer, designed the final logo and identity.
website architecture
The client’s needs and requirements, alongside the research insights, were divided by function and categorized within the website architecture.
Each main page category had its own landing page with information and links towards its detailed information.
The website architecture was visualized through a comprehensive header and sub-header design system, alongside a super footer.
Some terms were changed for better copywriting and user accessibility, in addition to SEO functions. For example, “Community” was changed to “The Park”.
Homepage design
The homepage was designed with the community as a priority.
Announcements were added first-thing for community members to read latest news. Followed by an introduction and statistics to establish legitimacy and trust factor.
news page
The news page was designed with a tag and article system for larger news articles, and an announcement widget for smaller memos.
Park pages
While the child pages were designed with a single template to allow for multiple changes and expansion whenever the community services grow.
The Park (community) page was designed as a landing page for all community-related material.
While the child pages were designed with a single template to allow for multiple changes and expansion whenever the community services grow.
Offices
The offices page’s features a filter widget that prioritizes size and type of office.
One of the insights gained from current renters/buyers was that pictures were the best way to help them visualize their working space alongside their size and space type. I designed the office cards to feature a thumbnail image with a description of the space, size and capacity of people. The filter widget has a slider where users can specify minumum and maximum office sizes.