Disney Institute Digital Refresh

Disney Institute reached out looking for a full website refresh, and the project started well before we touched the design. I worked closely with their marketing strategists to figure out what the site actually needed to do, where the existing experience was falling short, and what information needed to take priority. From there we built a new structure and visual direction that felt more modern while still fitting comfortably inside Disney’s larger design system.

The finished design was approved by Disney Institute, but internal budgets and politics kept this particular version from ever launching as a full redesign. It wasn’t completely lost, though. Some of the findings, layouts, colors, and branding decisions we established eventually made their way into the current site as a kind of middle-step evolution rather than the full facelift we originally designed.

It was still an incredibly valuable project for me. I learned how to work inside a brand with decades of equity without being afraid to push it forward, and how to guide a project through a lot of different stakeholders, teams, and opinions without losing the idea along the way.