Responses by Justin Kemerling, design, Justin Kemerling Design Co

Background: FACT is a student design and build program at the University of Nebraska working in partnership with Actual Architecture Co., an internationally recognized architecture and design firm founded by Jeffrey L. Day, AIA in Omaha, Nebraska. The site showcases student projects and their processes, while the FACT brand exists as the “lab” of experimentation under Actual. The site is targeted at nonprofits and communities who could be potential clients for FACT’s design and construction services.

Highlights: FACT has a long scrolling homepage that shows off its less formal nature with project descriptions, images, GIFs and Instagram posts. Using the same framework as the Actual website, designed and developed by South Bend Design, the FACT site highlights its process-centered, collaborative focus the students bring to all their projects. Connecting to Instagram helps add multiple perspectives by bringing in student photos of their individual experiences.

Favorite details: The homepage feels unique and more random than a typical portfolio site of case studies. It still has all that important information needed as users get deeper into the site, but the various elements showcased on factlab.org invites users to keep scrolling or to dig deeper if something catches their eyes.

Technical features: The architectural renderings and GIFs.

Anything new: We learned that it’s a very rewarding and productive web design and development process when the clients can pop in whenever for conversations about the site direction and its goals. We discussed concepts through face-to-face conversations and checked in with the client along the way—iteratively moving forward together until we launched.