In fall 2020, the Information Design Master's programme at Design Academy Eindhoven received an assignment addressing an urgent question: the removal and contextualization of racist and colonial monuments in the US and Europe. Recognizing that the topic's importance reached beyond the scope of the assignment, the students started a self-led initiative and created a collaborative, open-source website exploring the history of 17 controversial monuments.
The goal was for every student to design and code their own pages based on their research. As one of the team leads, I oversaw the structure and development of a reusable system of 40+ web components and four templates, supported by HTML/CSS/JS workshops that gave everyone the skills they needed. The project was later expanded with a panel discussion and presented at Dutch Design Week 2021
Component System and Structure
When the project started, our first step was to bring structure to the existing research. We sorted it by topics and underlying themes and created different content blocks that would form the main structure of the site.
To allow for a unique build-up of each page, we designed a complex system of around 40+ reusable components that could easily be filled with individual content. These included a range of grid styles (full width, half width, four images in a row, background images and many more), as well as a timeline feature. The system was developed as a team effort, with teams split into branding, UI, UX and technical implementation. I coordinated the technical side of the project, contributed to the UX and co-supervised the product design process.
Outcomes and individual pages
Within each monument category, students could choose one of the designed themes for their project and apply it to their existing research. The wide range of components allowed for a great variety of outcomes.
Panel Discussion at Dutch Design Week 2021
The project was eventually presented at Dutch Design Week 2021, where we introduced the project directory, explained our approach and showcased the website. Invited experts joined the students for a panel discussion on specific monuments, gave insights into current developments and shared their perspectives on the question: "Should problematic monuments be removed or contextualized?"
