Bay Tree Conference Center Redesign
The Bay Tree Conference Center at UCSC underwent a complete overhaul in the fall of 2021 including a complete transfer of it's previous website and reservation system. I was placed in charge of overseeing this project and built out things like a new logo, signage for the rooms, the new website, the new reservation system, and unified graphic materials used in all of the above.
This project started differently than how I typically begin working on a design suite; because the new reservation system needed to be up and running first, I began work on developing the code before developing any graphics materials. For this, I collaborated with a computer science student employee to work through JavaScript constructed in google suite. After this was up and running came constructing the website system that would house it.
When approaching building an entire website system from scratch, I wanted to be very intentional about creating unified, easily recognizable elements that would all but scream "Bay Tree Conference Center" no matter where they were. Because on principle the center is very tied to its physical location, I decided to create a vector illustration of the building to use as a banner on the website and as a background in other materials. The vector serves as a great alternative to using photographs in that it's simple shapes can be more easily recognized and deciphered at a glance. Presenting this to my supervisor went over very well and elements of this illustration went into my work on the logo as well.
Work on the logo and main branding then proceeded very quickly. I incorporated the trees that I had previously illustrated into the design and heavily referenced the UC Santa Cruz style guide for the colors and the font so as to unify the building with the rest of the campus' branding.
To complete the graphics materials, I also needed to create a matching map to guide clients to the center's location.
After generating the map came the long process of organizing and filling out the website through Cascade CMS. Apart from incorporating the graphic materials I had prepared and using my skill in HTML to embed google calendars, I also researched and compiled information to include on the site. To complete this, I collaborated with the American Indian Resource Center at UCSC to properly document and display information on the names of the conference rooms (named after indigenous groups of the area).
