Scholastic
Content Management for Clifford, Goosebumps, Captain Underpants and a world of characters
Scholastic needed a way help publishers and agents quickly find the rights information for the entire Scholastic catalog, across the world. Up until the point that they began working with me and Filtro, they had been hindered by poor and outdated web design and functionality. We set out to create a website that would not only be informational, but be easy to navigate and thoughtfully constructed for beauty and functionality.
Client
Scholastic
Role
Branding & identity design
UX design
Website Visual design
Project management
Client acquisition & relationship
Development
Year
2016
blue
hex 81D3DA
orange
hex E89941
pink
hex E2A898
red
hex D0644E
green
hex 91C986
yellow
hex F4CE31
charcoal
hex 3F3F40
medium gray
hex A9A39D
light gray
hex ECE9E7
color palette
The color palette we developed mixed together bright, warm colors and cooler neutrals. The wide swath of colors served as a nice reflection of the even wider swatch of content available on the website. It also did a great job of mirroring the vibrancy and excitement already well-associated with the Scholastic brand. We wanted the website’s colors to send a clear message to foreign publishers and agents arriving on our homepage, and that message was, “oh, the possibilities!”
Brights
Neutrals
Typography
What could be more important to a gargantuan catalog of written art than the fonts we chose to represent it? We went with Omnes, a playful, modern font with a wide range of weight options. On a website where licensing and legal rights were the thing users actually came to read, even the fine print needed to pop.
Background
Scholastic’s main problem was that it was very difficult for foreign publishers to license books in other countries and in other languages. This was the big dilemma that our digital solution needed to solve. Through better ease of use and licensing capability, the hope was that Scholastic could increase sales and foreign partnerships, and take their international business to the next level.
Data, data, and more data
A large component of this project was to export 8000+ book titles, 4500+ rights data, 2000+ author and illustrator profiles, images, and a number of agent user accounts from the existing website. The key was careful planning. We meticulously compiled and exported all the text data into spreadsheets. From there, we scrubbed the data for inconsistencies that were to be avoided on the new website. We worked closely with Scholastic, sharing spreadsheets, looking at the data and prep it for importing. At the same time, we compiled all the images and other data. Once we were finished, we imported the data into the Drupal database.
8000+
books
4500+
rights data
2000+
authors
Define high level functionality and requirements
Now that we knew what kind of content we’d be working with and what purpose that content would serve, we could begin deciding which kinds of functionality would best bring that content and the entire experience to life.
Strong ways to filter and search books, not only by expected criteria such as genre and age range, but you can find books based on region availability and rights granted. Cards
A consistent way to present rights and licensing information to each book.
Engaging landing pages to promote series contents and author pages
An easy to use way for other publisher to order books
Ecommerce *light*
In order to be a true solution, our website had to make it easy for agents to order books and potentially purchase the licensing rights for them. However, our website’s purpose was not for actual payment processing, so we jokingly referred to it as “ecommerce light.” Once logged in, agents would simply have the ability to add and place orders from the main website. (Want to see a complete ecommerce solution? Check out our other case study)
Branding
Scholastic’s brand was already well-established. But the look and feel for the Rights & Co-Edition Division needed to feel distinct. We took major insight and cues from the global brand style, but translated it into a visual language that better served this distinct purpose. We hope we made the big red dog proud!
