Over the past decade, the original brand identity of Lake Placid failed to resonate with both locals and visitors, necessitating an evolutionary shift. While preserving Lake Placid's distinctive personality, the new logo and visual identity sought to encapsulate its essence, ensuring a timeless appeal while embracing contemporary design principles for a fresh, bold direction.

Simultaneously, the website has gradually become visually outdated, struggling to keep pace with evolving design trends and technological advancements. The new website must harmonize with the visual identity while integrating modern functionalities and design practices observed on destination marketing sites globally.

Despite tight timeframes and limited resources, we executed a comprehensive survey targeting diverse local stakeholders in the Lake Placid region. This initiative enabled us to pinpoint significant pain points associated with the existing website, desired features for improved engagement, and unearthed a wishlist of enhancements users hoped to see in the upcoming site redevelopment.

Community stakeholders unanimously agreed on incorporating a 'favorites' functionality in the new site, empowering users to curate their itineraries. Additionally, there was widespread consensus regarding the necessity of a robust navigation system.

Furthermore, our survey with the internal marketing team underscored the importance of flexible page layouts and an improved information architecture. This includes representing local services and notices not primarily aimed at visitors, alongside a prominent channel for accessing conference-related information.

The website design will take a holistic approach that revitalizes the destination’s image while enhancing user experience. Our website redesign aims to create a seamless digital experience that reflects Lake Placid's newfound vitality. This new interface showcases the destination’s diverse attractions, outdoor recreation opportunities, amenities and more.

New/key features:

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• Favorites functionality
• Modular design for enhanced flexibility
• Robust menu system for intuitive navigation
• Integration or rebuilding of CMS (Content Management System)
• Refreshed approach to presenting business and content listings
• Expanded methods for information display
• Compliance with WCAG accessibility standards
• Flexible page layout options
• Responsive design for optimal viewing across devices

I was largely responsible for seeing this project through from concept to completion. The following outlines the design process I established for this project:
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• Discover: User research, user interviews
• Examine interface possibilities
• User flow
• Decide on information architecture: collaborate with the content team to create the navigation and determine the sites content hierarchy
• Build low fidelity and high fidelity wireframes: collaborate closely with developers to ensure that the front end design functionally aligns with the backend content management system
• User feedback: review the wireframes with the website committee comprised of various local stakeholders
• Prototype
• Development: close collaboration with developers  
• Review/test
• Site launch

1. Lake Placid Website, which draws millions of annual visitors and encompasses thousands of pages, has proven to be one of my most formidable endeavors to date. This monumental project has tasked me with single-handedly conceptualizing and executing every facet of the site's design. Balancing considerations such as the latest design trends, adherence to WCAG compliance standards, user experience optimization, functionality implementation, and visual effects has presented a multifaceted challenge.
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2. Unlike previous destination sites I've designed, the emphasis for this project lies heavily on flexibility and modular layouts. As I create modules for the site, each housing diverse types of information, I must anticipate their potential placement in any order and their availability on any page. The in-house content team will possess the freedom to modify page layouts and incorporate various modules as needed. Despite the variable layouts, coherence across all elements remains paramount.

This new design yields increased visitor engagement, improved tourism revenue, enhanced brand perception, better accessibility, efficient content management, and positive user feedback.