A rebranded digital foundation for global policy impact

Evolving Web has been partnering with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) for many years, supporting the evolution of its digital presence as the School continues to shape global policy leaders. Over the course of our collaboration, we have enhanced user experience, strengthened integrations with the Princeton University ecosystem, modernized the platform, and refined how SPIA tells its story online. 

Most recently, our work included helping SPIA become one of the first public-facing websites to implement Princeton’s new institutional branding. As an early adopter, we helped SPIA set the standard for how the University’s updated brand elements translate to digital. The new design also incorporates elements specific to the School such as the pillars that are visible in the architecture of the building and now across all communication materials. 

Our work has included creating clearer pathways to programs and admissions, showcasing the stories of students and faculty, highlighting the school's research, and clearly communicating the value of the institution’s work to policymakers. We’ve also kept the underlying Drupal platform up-to-date and completed a “lift and shift” to the Pantheon hosting environment.
 

The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs is a renowned institution for graduate and undergraduate studies. It boasts not just a prestigious name, but also an impressive list of alumni, faculty and guest speakers who attract a highly ambitious student body across a broad range of disciplines. 

What brings them together at Princeton is their shared dedication to using their domain-specific knowledge and research for the public good. The SPIA curriculum turns students into leaders and changemakers.

The project's main goal was to revitalize the School's web platform and digital identity in a way that would bring the stories of students and faculty to life, highlight the research that comes out of the school, and emphasize the relevance of the institution's work for both policymakers and potential students. We were tasked with better prioritizing and contextualizing content to make the website more compelling while improving the overall experience.

We also wanted to modernize the site's look and feel, balancing the School's individual character with the overarching Princeton University identity. Our design process aimed to emphasize the international reach of thought leadership generated within SPIA in addition to communicating the institution's strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.

For most faculty members and potential students, the SPIA website is the first point of contact with the School. Our team prioritized these audiences to create a more engaging and externally focused design. We created a new website flexible enough to accommodate the broad range of messages the School might wish to share with its global community. 

The website showcases the breadth of SPIA’s research activity and internal expertise, putting forward information that can be used to generate new ideas and perspectives on policy making at the national and international level. It acts as a knowledge base with the power to inspire and challenge visitors in their thinking about public and international affairs. 

The earlier work to move SPIA to a component-based design, which was part of the migration to the latest version of Drupal, proved valuable when implementing the new institutional branding. This flexible foundation allowed us to update existing components to the new brand elements without having to rebuild the entire site.
 

Our work included:

• Complete redesign using design patterns
• A visual identity that aligns with the Princeton University brand guidelines
• New information architecture, designed around the needs of potential students and policymakers
• User-centric experience and content strategy
• Managing input from multiple academic and administrative stakeholders
• Flexible page-building tools for content editors
• Migration of content from Drupal 7 to the latest version of Drupal
• Integration with Princeton University's single sign-on solution and centralized events calendar (Timeline)
• Integration with Kaltura (video) and Soundcloud (podcasts) for embedding media assets
• Unified integration with social media using a social wall (integrated with Juicer)
• Compliance with WCAG AA guidelines

The new visual identity enables the application of consistent design patterns across the content of the entire website and ensures a unified branding across all communication materials. The website's flexible, component-based redesign sets it up for future growth and grants content editors the freedom and tools available to independently create much more engaging pages that integrate harmoniously with the site’s overall design. The new website now integrates with Princeton’s single sign-on system and its event calendar, reducing duplicate logins and duplicate content entry.