Duke Youth Academy
The Duke Youth Academy is a year-long program for Christian youth that combines a week-long residency at Duke University and a full year of mentorship, practice and engagement with a supportive online community.
A bright color palette, large photos of students, and a modern, flat website design layout went a long way toward reaching their audience. Kompleks Creative also utilized mobile-responsive functionality (kids and their phones, right?) and focused on a three-click, intuitive user flow, to make each user’s time on the website more meaningful.
Duke Divinity: A Foundation for Theological Education
In an effort to revitalize theological education, Duke Divinity’s AFTE, provides the church with scholarly faculty members trained in the classical Wesleyan tradition.
Already a well-established foundation, AFTE’s former website undermined the quality of its initiatives and of its prized John Wesley fellows. Thus, the new website needed to both mirror these qualities and position the foundation for the future. Furthermore, it was important to maintain the integrity of the web design even with content updates.
AFTE wanted a website that was both “ignited” and serious in tone, but that did not need to reflect the Duke University brand. Kompleks Creative incorporated clean lines and the use of traditional serifs to reference both the assertive and classical nature of the foundation. The inclusion of photos representing John Wesley fellows and AFTE’s programs not only give a face to the organization, but allows website visitors to feel warmly welcomed.
Catalyst
Catalyst is an online newsletter for United Methodist seminarians, pastors, and other Christian leaders. It is broadly focused on the classical Christian tradition as a context for thinking, serving and living as Wesleyan-Methodist leaders. The main challenge Kompleks Creative faced when redesigning the Catalyst website was information architecture—there was just so much information, and encouraging engagement on the website would largely come down to restructuring that information in a way that made it easier for users to find what they were interested in.
Catalyst
Our website design approach was to keep the inherently text-heavy website visually simple and clean, with calls-to-action placed prominently to direct the user flow and foster engagement. We also devised different methods of filtering so that users have more control over the way they search for specific information.
Duke Divinity Leadership Education
As one of 13 seminaries founded and supported by the United Methodist Church, the Divinity School at Duke University offers academic programs that provide a strong foundation for Christian ministry and leadership, ensuring that students are prepared to serve the church and the world. The Leadership Education program’s website functions primarily as a resource of information for prospective students and leaders, both clergy and lay, who serve Christian institutions.
Duke Divinity Leadership Education
The existing website lacked mobile responsiveness, appeared visually dated and had plenty of outdated content. Kompleks Creative was able to create a more modern, responsive website design that visually connected the program with the Duke Divinity School and Duke University. We also reorganized the information architecture to make it more efficient and intuitive. Since launch, the program had evolved and new user experience (UX) challenges arised. Four years later, they asked us to resolve these challenges by improving the structure and refreshing the design of specific pages.
Thriving in Ministry Coordination Program
Thriving in Ministry is a program of Lilly Endowment Inc. that awarded 103 grants to colleges, seminaries, denominations, congregations and other non-profits to support pastors and the congregations they serve. Leadership Education at Duke Divinity serves as the coordination program for this initiative, providing resources and support to projects, curating learning opportunities for project staff and sharing the wisdom gleaned from the work with others who care about pastors.
Thriving in Ministry Coordination Program
Inspired by the use of large photography, bold typography and patterns on the Duke Youth Academy website, Kompleks Creative developed a website design that pastors, program directors and staff would find user-friendly. As a new resource providing several engagement opportunities, we wanted to make sure that they could easily find and support each other.
Thriving Congregations
Thriving Congregations, a national program funded by Lilly Endowment Inc, aims to help congregations strengthen their ministries so they can help deepen their relationships with God, enhance their connections with each other and contribute to the flourishing of their communities and the world. The program is coordinated by Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
Thriving Congregations
Thriving Congregations needed a space that provides a visual representation of their work and connects grantees and with program resources. To do this, we produced a web design featuring clear navigation and appropriate call-to-actions encouraging website visitors to explore the site. The homepage highlights their three main commitments, encouraging visitors to join the broader conversation about the future of American Christianity. Our design allows visitors to enjoy stories, connect with the community and share their own resources related to congregational life and leadership.
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