Tales From The Jungle: Working With MediaSmarts

Growing up in Canada during the early 2000s, it’s safe to say that MediaSmarts has always been a part of my life. I can remember learning about internet safety in elementary school, and our class got to go to the computer lab to play the different games they had on their website. Having the opportunity to work with them on their website refresh was very exciting for me. As well as being one of the first projects I worked on at Cheeky Monkey Media, it included a complete upgrade from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9.

What is MediaSmarts?

MediaSmarts, is an organization that provides resources and educational materials to educators, parents, and youth to help them learn about media literacy. You may be familiar with the house hippo – that would be them.

Getting into it

Because the project was mainly technical in nature (the Drupal 7 to 9 upgrade), limited budget was available for design. But, this worked out as MediaSmarts was only looking for a subtle refresh to their homepage and smaller website elements.

As I had recently earned my UX Design certificate, this project was certainly a new experience. Up until that point, I had been creating complete designs from scratch and rarely had to deal with elements of a design remaining the same. It’s fair to say this was a fun new challenge for me as I had to consider how to make the homepage look fresh while keeping it cohesive with the rest of the site.

To meet the challenge, I opted to incorporate their brand colors throughout the page, using the menus and navigation to tie it all together. We also developed a color coded scheme to differentiate audiences, making it easier for them to self-select their browsing path.

Over the course of the project, I was fortunate to work closely with the MediaSmart team, collaborating with an organization that was influential in my early school career. Through meetings and calls, we discussed edits, revisions, and creative ideas, all to make the refreshed design a success. Without a doubt, I enjoyed getting to work with MediaSmarts in a professional capacity, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to do more with them.