EwingCole
Elevated UX boosts brand visibility, lead generation & recruiting for a renowned architecture, engineering, interior design & planning firm.
OVERVIEW
EwingCole is an award-winning provider of architecture, engineering, interior design, and planning services for some of the nation’s most noteworthy venues and facilities.
With an impressively broad and deep body of work, their expert design touch has transformed everything from Citizen’s Bank Park — home field of the MLB’s Philadelphia Phillies — to the West Wing at DC’s National Museum of American History, and a massive redesign at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, MN, which celebrates the region’s indigenous Ojibwa people.
When we met with the EwingCole team, we learned that their legacy website wasn’t serving them well on a variety of fronts: Navigation was a struggle particularly on mobile devices, information dead ends were plentiful, and static project pages were heavy on graphics but light on meaningful content. In short, it wasn’t representing the firm effectively as an industry leader with a strong, future-focused ethos.
PAIN POINTS & CHALLENGES
The client team needed a site that went far beyond a mere digital portfolio to meet the needs and high expectations of prospective clients, job seekers, and industry peers while sparking growth in brand visibility, lead generation, and talent recruitment.
The storytelling for projects, specialties, and team member bios needed to be easier to digest, with graphics that support — rather than overwhelm — the narratives.
The project requirements included dynamic content, visual, and UX design strategies that all worked together to encourage discovery of their vast project portfolio spanning everything from healthcare to science, technology, academic, athletic, recreational, workplace, cultural, and governmental spaces.
SOLUTIONS: STRATEGY MEETS CREATIVITY
Discovery
We kicked off the project with a series of collaborative workshops, aligning with EwingCole’s internal team on KPIs and long-term goals. This gave us a clear view into the firm’s priorities: showcasing thought leadership and content diversity, strengthening visibility of their firm’s culture, and creating flexible content structures that could grow with the organization.
Content Strategy & Information Architecture
After a comprehensive review of the legacy site and EwingCole’s proposed sitemap, we refined the information architecture to streamline navigation, create clearer user pathways, and optimize search results for their core audiences.
Other noteworthy wins include:
- Integrated Storytelling & Thought Leadership
The homepage tagline, “Design About People,” immediately signals their human-centered philosophy and grounds the firm’s narrative in empathy and experience. A “News & Insights” section goes beyond press releases to present project-related storytelling, helping audiences better understand the context and commitment to innovation infused throughout their work.
- A Brand Aligned With People & Values
The homepage tagline, “Design About People,” immediately signals their human-centered philosophy and grounds the firm’s narrative in empathy and experience. A “News & Insights” section goes beyond press releases to present project-related storytelling, helping audiences better understand the context and commitment to innovation infused throughout their work. - A Strong (But Still Flexible) Content Structure“Featured Projects” pages now include impactful project summaries, categories, and client testimonials. The blend of narrative context, technical insight, and branded imagery helps balance storytelling with technical credibility.
- Easy Ongoing Site Management
The redesigned site — built on a flexible yet consistent design system — is now enabling their content team to spend less time wrestling with the limitations of an outdated WP Bakery theme, and more time focusing on what matters: telling their story in dynamic, visually impactful ways.
Visual & UX Design
Using a design process rooted in a problem-solving approach that looks at the needs of the end user, conversion opportunities, the content requirements and formatting, and the brand, voice, and tone of the organization. In the end, we delivered creative, elegant design execution and intuitive, cross-device user experiences.
Working with EwingCole’s established brand standards and preference for clean page layouts, we created a visual design system that keeps eye-catching imagery and key project narratives front and center — where they belong.
Other notable enhancements include:
- Creating page layouts for a wide variety of unique content types provided a library of flexible building blocks for the new site. As we dove further into discovery and requirements, we made changes to realign with content needs and project objectives.
- Top-level navigation that organizes “Our Work” by market sectors like Cultural, Education, Health & Wellness, and more — making it easy for users to find relevant work quickly. Dedicated “Expertise” dropdown highlights specific services, such as Design Research, Process Engineering, and Lighting Design, reinforcing the firm’s multidisciplinary strengths.
- A clear hierarchy within project pages supports more compelling storytelling. A thoughtful balance of imagery, headlines, and supporting text now communicates the firm’s brand with authority and clarity.
- A variety of ways to present and cross-promote project content — including a masonry grid component which can be ordered by page weight or publication date, as well as options for displaying by category type, related team bios, or area of expertise — are designed to scale with the firm as it grows into the future.
