Intent, Voice and Tone
The intent of the Herb Lubalin Study Center website is to archive and display designs. The voice is LOUD, assertive, and informative. The tone is proud.
Personas
People who visit this website are likely studious, creative explorers that especially enjoy graphic design and its history. Visitors likely live in New York and are familiar with the Herb Lubalin Study Center, but use the website as a resource for design information without needing to go to the Study Center in-person.
Alexis Kontos
Alexis Kontos is a 22-year-old design student born in Greece that now studies at Parsons School of Design. Alexis visited the Lubalin in November of 2019 and has kept the name and location archived in his head as a great source for historically strong works of graphic design. He first went to the Lubalin as a part of a class trip where students had to choose five pieces of graphic design from the library, and further research and write about the pieces. Now, Kontos has had the chance to visit once during the pandemic, but still continues to access the website for inspiration on future projects because the internet provides him with much easier access to the designs.
Tracy Rose
Tracy Rose is a 32-year-old adjunct professor at the Pratt Institute, where she has taught a design course focused on information visualization for the past 3 years while working as a freelancing consultant and designer for a number of large companies in New York. Tracy considers visiting museums and the projects that surround those visits as an invaluble piece to the course's content, and has loved visiting the Herb Lubalin Study Center since she first lived in New York for grad school. Tracy enjoys visiting the Lubalin's website today, because while she does not have many chances to visit in-person, the website provides her and her students with an incredible resource that provides students access to a wealth of design information available literally at their fingertips.
Kurt Armstrong
Kurt Armstrong is a 73-year-old museum connoisseur who has been retired for the past decade, and in his retirement has picked up an appreciation for visiting and learning about museums from all over the world. Kurt planned on visiting the Herb Lubalin Study Center in March 2020, but his plans fell through as a result of the pandemic. Without the current ability to travel, and with continued interest to learn about the work of influential artists and designers, Kurt visits the Herb Lubalin Study Center website and visits their Flat File and Centenniel Celebration pages. These two pages perfectly satisfy Kurt's needs because they provide with opportunities to look at recent work as well as a historical archive of visual design projects.
Wireframe
Copy Deck
Title: The Herb Lubalin Study Center
Heading: The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography
Sub-Heading: Opened in 1985, the Study Center was created in order to preserve an unprecedented resource: Herb Lubalin’s vast collection of work. Its goal was to provide the design community with a means to honor Lubalin and to study his innovative work.
Body Copy: Herb Lubalin (1918–1981) is best known for his wildly illustrative typography and his groundbreaking work for the magazines Avant Garde, Eros, and Fact. The Study Center’s core collection includes an extensive archive of his work, including drawings, promotional, editorial and advertising design, typeface design, posters, logos, and other materials dating from 1950 to 1981.
The collection also includes work by other eminent designers including Otl Aicher, Anthon Beeke, Lester Beall, Will Burtin, Lou Dorfsman, Karl Gerstner, Tibor Kalman, Alvin Lustig, Elaine Lustig Cohen, The Push Pin Studios, Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson, Massimo Vignelli, and many more. There is also a library of books and magazines about design and typography, an extensive collection of posters, myriad type specimen books, and pamphlets within the archive.
Sub-Heading: The Study Center is located at The Cooper Union 41 Cooper Square, Room LL119, New York.
Body Copy: The Lubalin Center is free and open to the public by appointment. Up to two people at a time, and up to two hours per appointment.
Appointments accepted:
Weekdays only (subject to availability).
For group visits (6 or more, 16 max), contact us to set up a hands-on presentation (if schedule permits).
Competition
Competing museum websites include the Cooper Hewitt's, which has a more serious tone, not being as loud or exciting, but does provide users with a higher amount of interactivity. In the museum, visitors scan codes on the pieces that interest them most, and then get a personalized link to be able to go back to each design that interested in to be able to revisit and expand their research. The Cooper Hewitt also has a higher focus on exhibitions, while the Lubalin is just a study center where unquestionably influential and important pieces of design are archived. If I were looking for a specific piece of design, the Cooper Hewitt would likely be a better website, but if I am looking for general design inspiration or specific information on many pieces of graphic design in particular, the Lubalin's website would serve me best.