JSTOR is a digital library for discovering and connecting research, images, and primary sources used by millions of people around the world.
Our team created and launched a refreshed brand identity to support JSTOR's new strategic initiatives.
Company: JSTOR
Role: Lead product designer
Team: Kelsey Cavitt, Liza Pagano, Florence Lee, Matt MacQueen
Contributors: Lori Lundy, Jin Kim, Sung Mun, Matt Martin, Sam Pierce Lolla, Nick Sands
Timing: December 2019 – June 2021
In 2017, JSTOR acquired Artstor, an online library of images and primary sources from the world's best museums and artists, in a strategic play to offer a richer content experience apart from text-based content.
We wanted to strengthen the depth and quality of our users’ research efforts under one platform.
JSTOR's existing brand couldn't support this initiative and it needed to evolve.
Our brand needed a source of truth, so the marketing team started the initiative by creating a brand story that outlined JSTOR's history, mission, and vision. They used learnings from inclusive workshops and internal and external interviews to bring JSTOR's story to life.
By crafting the story, it gave us a guidepost for all future brand decisions to be based off of.
JSTOR is for the intellectually curious -- both lifelong learners and those searching for answers to specific questions. We support them because the humanities, social sciences, and the arts help us contend with complex moral issues and show us how to lead a more meaningful life.
Born in libraries, JSTOR pioneered the digitization of academic journals. This relatively humble idea has had a profound effect. Rare, forgotten, and isolated materials join fundamental scholarship and become part of the discourse. Critical content is preserved for the future and discovery improves dramatically.
As a mission-driven not-for-profit, we partner with libraries, museums, and publishers to reduce costs and extend access to underserved populations. We provide a platform with innovative tools for teaching and research, new ways to use data, and the ability to share special collections.
We believe in the power of knowledge to change the world for the better. As researchers search for insights in established disciplines and emerging practices, JSTOR will continue to deliver an environment where they can understand our history and help chart our future.
For the design phase, I partnered with our Creative Director, Liza Pagano, who led the brand and marketing implementation. I acted as the bridge between brand and product, leading up the product design implementation.
We kicked off our journey by creating moodboards that reflected the essence of the brand story, ensuring we went wide to see what could be possible for JSTOR.
This video captures our first day of moodboarding. We were on the hunt for inspiration at one of the libraries at the University of Michigan, where JSTOR was originally founded.
We unpacked themes from our brand story to help us visualize possible directions.
We came up with 3 visually distinct concepts named Support, Discover, and Connect.
A softer, friendlier feel with pastel colors, humanist typefaces, rounder shapes, and people-focused imagery.
A bolder, stronger approach, with bright colors and gradients, grotesque and bold typefaces, and dynamic and intriguing imagery.
A simpler, cleaner direction with contrasting colors, modern typefaces, sharper shapes, and graphical imagery.
The concepts were brought to life by our entire design team over the course of 4 weeks. Liza and I assigned each designer a concept to explore and provide high-fidelity mockups of a few key product pages.
Each week, we iterated based on feedback from our weekly design reviews. We encouraged them to go wide and see what could be possible. It was such a fun experience and our team had the chance to be part of the journey to help us ultimately narrow down to just two directions.
See the kickoff deck for our working sessions ->
After diverging on the separate concepts, we converged and spun up two different directions to test with users.
We wanted to compare our users’ current perception of JSTOR with the new directions by measuring directly against the Brand Framework.
We conducted two separate tests to act as inputs for making decisions for a final direction.
Overview
We conducted 8 in-person user interviews to understand and identify existing perceptions of JSTOR compared with impressions of our new design directions.
Learning goals
Overview
We conducted a click test survey with 50 users from a Usability Hub panel, optimizing for feedback outside of our direct space. We wanted to directly compare the design directions using the Brand Framework.
Learning goals
We distilled our learnings from both tests into a few primary learnings and opportunities to keep in mind when converging on a final direction.
1. JSTOR's differentiator is the quality of its content
It's essential to elevate the content and that it continues to be high quality, curated, and peer-reviewed. The quality of the content is the most important aspect to communicate on JSTOR in its presentation. It should not be overpowered by the branding.
2. Our users associate JSTOR's brand with its logo and primary JSTOR red color
Our customers know and love JSTOR's logo and JSTOR red. We have the opportunity to lean in to our existing branding beacons for stronger brand continuity.
3. The simpler designs performed better, but there's room for including more visual interest.
Between our two directions, overall the second direction represents and feels more like JSTOR, but it lacked intrigue and was described as "sterile." We should continue to provide a dependable experience that brings more visual appeal and dimension.
After months of ideating, reviewing, testing, and refining, we narrowed in to create an elevated and inclusive final direction that is now reflected as JSTOR’s brand identity.
The color palette is inspired directly from our brand story, “JSTOR is for the intellectually curious.” All colors in the palette complement JSTOR Red.
We interpreted “intellectually curious” as nature in all its vibrancy. Our moodboard consisted of powerful sunsets, the northern lights, and arctic landscapes. We wanted to capture the feeling a researcher gets when they discover or learn something new.
We selected two typefaces—Ivar, a serif for headings, and GT America, a sans serif for body copy. By having both serif and sans serif typefaces, we aimed to provide intrigue and contrast, enabling a more scannable experience to parse through thousands of search results. We also wanted to select typefaces that were legible and humanist to support an accessible and authentic experience.
JSTOR is full of text-based content, so it was important to select a typeface that had great legibility and readability. Users parse through thousands of results to do their research and we didn’t want to make their job harder.
Generous x-height
We selected typefaces that had generous x-height. The shorter the x-height, the smaller the letter will appear, which can cause the type to become illegible.
Open apertures
Apertures are the opening gaps found in certain letters such as c, e, and s. Large and open apertures aid readers in deciphering letterforms.
Humanist
We wanted to select a typeface genre that is characterized by the presence of a hand. Their forms reference the stroke of a pen, feel more organic, and have a human touch.
We wanted to make our icons a valuable addition to our UI, rather than just a decorative element. They aren't stealing the show and support what users are trying to do when they come to JSTOR. Our icons follow a square shape, inspired by JSTOR's logo, to create an ownable and consistent set.
.gif)
Our icons seek to provide clarity and convey brand personality, but must first communicate meaning. Our set was created with our icon principles in mind to ensure they were accessible and aligned to the brand.
