International State Crime Initiative
Brief: To build a website that isn’t a website (!) to showcase up to eight State Crime case studies, written to support the studies of ISCI (International State Crime Initiative) students.
The brief for this one was a real challenge and one we all really enjoyed. The case studies were written by top academics from universities across the world (Yale, Hull, Kings College London and Ulster Universities) and were substantial – 5000+ words. The challenge was to present these texts in a more interesting and engaging way than just a PDF or endlessly scrolling document. As there were many sources that featured alongside the original text, these needed to be included to ensure students took away as much as possible from the texts.
We spent lots of time thinking of different ways in which we could present the content, with the key brief being that it shouldn’t feel like a website. Added to this, ISCI wanted a site that could grow as case studies were added – so a templated approach to create further case studies in the future was needed.
We played with having a metaphor – a desk, a path or a walk through – as well as different ways of going through different pages. We finally rested on a side-ways scroll approach, using imagery, audio and video to really bring the case studies alive.
Alongside this bespoke website, we created a CMS to allow affiliates of ISCI to be able to manage and add new content ongoing.
The website has been received exceptionally well by students and academics alike and we hope to be able to build on it in the future.
