Charlotte Taylor Design

OPENCITIES

Based in the Melbourne office, my role at OpenCities as a visual designer was to create new client sites and theme refreshes. With a front-end component library and endless theming capabilities, the CMS at OpenCities had the power and capability to make beautiful UI design commonplace for our client sites. 

OpenCities was created to help local governments serve better. It is a CMS platform enabling local government to improve the connection between council and residents through accessible web design. The top priority for each of the client sites is to maintain accessibility standards according to the WCAG guidelines. To ensure this was achieved I worked with front end developers throughout the design process - checking over the designs before they were presented back to the client. As well as this, on-going contrast checking was performed throughout the design process. 

The design process could involve a digital services academy workshop - which is a deep dive into the clients wants and needs, likes and dislikes as well as their branding needs. As well as this, there is also a theme builder workshop - where the client is walked through the layout options for their site. By going through these processes previous to starting the designs, I was able to understand the clients wants and needs more clearly, and then could create 1-3 strong options to present back to the client. Other parts of my role included creating icon sets, attending theme building workshops, liaising with project managers, feedback and co-working sessions with colleagues, daily stand up and maintaining open communication with colleagues.