Supporting Artists and Designers From Application to Mid-Career: A Career Platform for the RISD Career Center
The RISD Career Center serves prospective students, current ones, graduates and working artists years out — in perpetuity, by its own description. One platform had to be legible to all of them without reading as generic to any.
The work
The Challenge: Six Audiences and a Service That Lasts for Life
The RISD Career Center offers one-on-one meetings, portfolio reviews, events and seminars, along with information about grants, fellowships and residencies for artists throughout their career — in perpetuity, by its own description.
That last part is the difficulty. The audience is parents, prospective students, current students, students about to graduate, recent graduates and working artists, and a platform organized around the academic calendar would serve the shortest part of that relationship well and the rest of it badly.
Most of what the Center offers is also a person rather than a document.
The Strategy: Build for the Relationship, Not the Enrollment
Build for a relationship that continues long after graduation.
- Scheduling inside the platform, since the core of the service is time with someone.
- A flexible design system for an audience of visual thinkers, who notice a generic design faster than anyone.
- Friendly and personal as a requirement, because the staff’s dedication is what the Center is known for and the hardest thing for a website to convey.
The Outcomes: One Service Legible to Six Audiences
- Engagement | One platform legible to six audiences, from parents to working artists | Scheduling, resources and a design system built for people who look at design for a living
The detail
Why it mattered
- Six groups, one platform. Parents, prospective students, current students, students about to graduate, recent graduates and working artists all use the same service, and what each of them wants from it has almost nothing in common with the others.
- The service does not stop at graduation. The Career Center supports artists throughout their career, in perpetuity by its own description. A platform built around the academic calendar would serve the smallest and shortest part of that relationship.
- What it offers is people. One-on-one meetings, portfolio reviews, events and seminars, alongside information about grants, fellowships and residencies. Most of the value is time with a person.
The call and the build
- Scheduling as a first-class part of the platform. Since the core of the service is time with someone, the platform provides scheduling itself.
- A flexible design system for an artistic audience. The people using this are visual thinkers and are unusually well equipped to notice when a design is generic. The system had to be flexible enough to keep their attention without becoming decoration.
- Friendly and personal, on purpose. The experience was built to reflect the staff’s own dedication, which is the thing the Career Center is actually known for and the hardest thing for a website to convey.
What it left behind
- One service legible to six audiences. A career platform that a parent, a prospective student and an artist fifteen years out can each use without any of them feeling it was built for someone else.
Career services platform questions
Who does a college career platform actually serve?
More people than the enrolled. The RISD Career Center serves parents, prospective students, current students, students about to graduate, recent graduates and working artists years out — in perpetuity, by its own description — and what each group wants has almost nothing in common with the others.
Why organize a career site around scheduling?
Because most of the value is an appointment rather than a page. The RISD Career Center offers one-on-one meetings, portfolio reviews, events and seminars — so the platform provides scheduling itself, as a first-class feature.
How do you design for an audience of visual thinkers?
Knowing they notice a generic design faster than anyone. The design system had to be flexible enough to keep the attention of people who look at design for a living, without tipping into decoration — and friendly and personal on purpose, because the staff’s dedication is what the RISD Career Center is known for.
What should a college career services website include?
For the RISD Career Center build by Pare & Co: one platform legible to six audiences — a parent, a prospective student and an artist fifteen years out can each use it without feeling it was built for someone else — with scheduling, resources and a design system made for an artistic audience.