Stanford Arts
Bringing bold new energy to Stanford Arts within their existing WordPress ecosystem
The challenge
Stanford Arts needed a fresh digital expression of their newly rebranded identity — but without rebuilding their entire site. The goal: redesign in place, applying updated visuals, layout, and strategy while working within their current WordPress setup and existing technical infrastructure.
The project called for close coordination with Stanford’s in-house web team, who would lead development. Our focus was to bring structure, clarity, and cohesion to a content-rich site that serves a wide and varied community.
The Solution
We partnered with Stanford Arts to deliver a design system grounded in storytelling, usability, and long-term sustainability. Our work included:
- A clear, accessible information architecture
- Wireframes and mood boards to define creative direction
- A library of reusable, flexible templates
- Strategic collaboration with Stanford’s in-house developers
All of it rooted in the Stanford Arts brand and designed to connect users to the breadth of the university’s creative community.
Evolving a legacy without starting from scratch
We’ve partnered with Stanford University on multiple projects over the years, and this one brought a fresh creative challenge: redesign the Stanford Arts site in place. That meant keeping the existing WordPress CMS and working within technical constraints — all while applying a bold new brand and elevating the user experience. Stanford’s in-house team would handle development, so our role focused on design strategy, structure, and seamless collaboration.
Connecting people to Stanford’s Arts’ vibrant community
Our goal was to create a digital experience that makes it easy for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to find and engage with Stanford’s many arts programs. With simplified navigation and intuitive content pathways, we designed the site to support exploration, spark curiosity, and help users take meaningful action — whether that’s attending an event, joining a program, or diving deeper into the creative community.
Beyond usability, the new design highlights Stanford’s leadership in the arts—both in the Bay Area and on a national scale. By incorporating rich storytelling elements, including text and media, the site brings the impact of Stanford Arts to life, encouraging deeper engagement with its programs and initiatives.
Designing for a dynamic, decentralized arts ecosystem
Stanford Arts brings together a wide range of programs, departments, and creative initiatives. The site needed to serve as both a high-level introduction and a detailed resource, offering context for newcomers and depth for those seeking specifics.
With so much information to organize, the challenge was clarity. We designed a system that balances immersive storytelling with intuitive navigation, supporting users who want to explore broadly and those with a clear destination in mind.
A collaborative approach from design to developer handoff
This project was a true partnership between Stanford Arts and Modern Tribe, with close coordination to ensure a seamless design handoff. Stanford Arts and its in-house web developer provided key foundational elements, including a content audit, user flows, Google Analytics insights, and a brand style guide developed by an external agency.
Building on this foundation, Modern Tribe focused on structuring and designing an engaging, user-friendly experience. Our team delivered information architecture, top-level navigation, wireframes, and mood board options to establish the creative direction. We designed responsive templates with a strong emphasis on accessibility and user experience testing and provided HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for unique design features and functionality.
While development was handled by Stanford’s in-house team using WordPress and Beaver Builder, close collaboration was essential to ensure the final implementation aligned with the design vision and platform capabilities.
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