Parergon

Parergon is the academic journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS). The journal site acts as a catalogue and a news source for journal activities.

I was contracted to design and build their journal on Open Journal Systems (OJS) from late 2022 to 2023.

Building the brand

Following an initial team call to determine the scope and briefing, I embarked on my usual cycle of research for branding (with a focus on visual branding). The client wanted the journal to feel like an academic journal but with minor elements of quirkiness. I have my clients use emotive language and mood boards to consolidate the gap in visual language between me as a designer and them as non-designers (and often non-creative or non-tech people).

I pitched the following themes, of which the client selected the first during our feedback session:

This process regularly results in a look and feel with which the client is ultimately happy.

I liaised with the OJS teams to sort out the hosting for the journal and continued this through development to iron out issues.

Planning the site

I drew up some wireframes once the client provided the content, making suggestions as required. This was fairly painless; I ensured I accommodated the patterns expected by journal users on other academic journal websites. I also had to ensure the inclusion of relevant features from the OJS platform.

Once the clients were happy with the wireframes and content positioning, I transitioned the wireframes to a high-fidelity mock-up in Figma. This was sent off to ANZAMEMS for feedback from the wider committee and to sign off for development approval.

Feedback given for the original mockups included it being on the bland and boring side, so I chose to animate the map on the homepage, the map in the footer, add gold accents to the titles, and animate the menu with a golden underline. This would keep the site feeling ‘clean and minimal’, which was their priority.

Building the website

OJS is built using PHP, Smarty Templates, and LESS. Building the website involved analysing existing templates to understand the implementation and then adding similar features with minor extensions. I used semantic HTML where possible.

Challenges

Challenges weren’t massively significant in the scheme of things. The biggest issues I encountered were:

1. Poor documentation meant that implementing some features became an arduous task. I leant on the OJS team, who were very helpful in ironing out issues towards the end.
2. Incorporating the map animation into the footer without being too obtrusive took more effort and finesse than anticipated, but the result was worth it.
3. Coding for accessibility was nigh impossible with the way the CMS was developed in the expected timeframe. Rewriting parts of the template from scratch would have taken months of work.

Reflection

At the point of doing this project, most of my processes were already well-established, my empathy deeply cemented, and communication with clients enjoyable - a far cry from some of my others. I am disappointed by software that doesn’t support accessible practices. In the future, I intend to drill down and make both my designs and coded products as detail-oriented as I am.