Material Futures Labs is a biology startup focussing on making sustainable, bacteria based textile dyes. In January 2020, I began working with Material Futures to create an interactive and engaging website to represent their online presence.
During the design and build phases of the site, the lab was seeking out research grants and awards to continue their work. The site's main goal was to give a brief and engaging overview of Material Futures Lab to potential sponsors and partners, while still feeling like it was thoughtfully designed. The site also had to remain flexible and easily changeable as the lab's work, research, and product continued to evolve.
jan 2020 - present
I worked closely with the founder of Material Futures, Iris Redinger, to determine the initial design of the site. We looked to other similar start up sites for an idea about what pages and content to include, and built wireframes for several options. As the startup was still in its early stages, our initial designs had to be adapted to fit the current content and level of privacy that was required by the lab. Once we'd iterated through several options, and minimized the site down to what was necessary for Material Futures at the time, I built out and tested a more finalized version. The Material Futures site is still evolving and growing with the lab (who are doing great!), and so our main goal was to incorporate elements that would be easy to add or remove detail from as necessary.
Material Futures creates dye, so colour was important to consider and use throughout the design process. We tried out several different schemes and combinations to find something that combined the energy of the lab with the overall scientific tone. We also worked closely (and remotely!) with a graphic designer who was redesigning the brand logo, to ensure that the lab had a colourful, but not overwhelming feel, and that the site and logo felt cohesive.
