The Gateway Publishing Site

The Process

Context/Problem

In 2018 Gateway Seminary led a qualitative research project centered around finding what people inside and outside of the institution thought about the school. The findings that related to my team were: first, potential external stakeholders had little knowledge of the school. Second, those who are familiar with the school considered it to be the seminary of the city - a strong distinction from the school’s sister seminaries. Lastly, many found Gateway to be less academically rigorous because its curricula focused more heavily on practical experience than academia. The first two insights were the basis of a project also included in my portfolio: the Gateway Seminary brand refresh.

Plan/Research

To accomplish one of our school’s priorities that was born out of that research project - showcasing our faculty and marketing Gateway Seminary’s reputation as an academically rigorous school - I spearheaded the production of a publishing website. I took it from idea to proof of concept, which included brainstorming, research, content ideation, designing wireframes and prototypes in figma and laid out the basic design theme in order to receive funding to work with web developers to make this site a reality.

Wireframes in Figma: The Gateway: Publishing Site

Prototypes in Figma: The Gateway: Publishing Site

Solutions

To address the third insight of the school’s lack of academic prestige, my team set goals of increasing the prominence of faculty publishing and solidifying the identity of Gateway Seminary as an academically rigorous school. In response to these goals, I developed a plan to showcase faculty and student scholarship in our public publications, marketing material and overall visual refresh. Two of these projects were the brand refresh and the overall of the biannual magazine. These projects gave me the idea of starting a publishing site for the school as a way to digitally house the magazine and showcase the academic scholarship of our faculty and advanced degree students.

The timing was right to use the development of a publishing website as the basis for the UX/UI assignment. I set out to research the intersection of faculty scholarship and user interest, as well as publishing sites that could incorporate and highlight both our growing magazine and gateway’s faculty publications.

My final product for this project was a set of wireframes and a prototype with some design elements in place that we used as proof of concept in order to receive funding to work with web developers to create TheGateway.press Publishing site.