Finotype: An Online Archive

URL: http://www.finotype.org/

Role: Lead Designer and Project Manager

Tasks: Visual and UX Design, Information Architecture, Managing deadlines, Coordinating Content Production between Project's Creator/Writer/Curator and its other Contributors

Description

As project coordinator of the University of Connecticut's Scholars' Collaborative (a digital scholarship center), I worked with faculty members and graduate students on digital projects that showcased or expanded upon their scholarship and research. I often took on the role of project manager and designer in these collaborations. Finotype is an example of these projects. It's a multi-media archive and discussion of Cuban culture developed in collaboration with its creator and curator Jacqueline Loss. After speaking extensively with Loss about her writing and her ideas for the project, I suggested we design the site as a photo gallery. I chose a SquareSpace template that corresponded with this vision, and helped Loss to shape the site's information architecture, user flow, style guidelines, and content placement. The user can click on photos or archival images to reveal either writings about the image or a place to comment on the image himself. The images and writings both help the reader/user gain information about Cuban notions of "refinement," race, and class.