Updating a Silicon Valley Original

Over the years, the Stanford Research Park team has established a clear culture and sense of community. Taking this as our cue when conducting our landscape analysis, we looked at both direct competitors and brands in the hospitality space. From there we formed a point of view around how amenities can be presented similar to a hospitality or lifestyle brand. This created a fresh perspective on the visual brand identity.

One of our goals with the updated visual identity was to create brand elements that are elevated, professional, and modern. Details found across the site create continuity that allow even the most simple pages to be part of the brand experience.

The design system uses brand fonts in ways unique to the organization. This gave us the freedom to push the Stanford font further to keep the connection while creating a distinct identity.

We also worked with a more nuanced color palette using more than the stark Stanford burgundy and white. This approach softens the aesthetic to make it more approachable to residents resulting in a system that’s more professional than scholastic.

For the icons on the site, we stayed with the style we previously established, updating them to make them work with the site’s more modern aesthetic. In addition, we decided to enclose them in circles to give them a little more prominence while increasing their legibility. The circle also connects the iconography to the circle-cropped photography adding to the cohesive brand experience.

Stanford Research Park’s brand narrative is about showcasing the companies that have launched there and call it their innovation HQ today. This approach is part of their strategy to attract new companies. While we did some traditional About page storytelling, we also used a timeline to create an interesting highlights experience.

In its most simple form, Stanford Research Park is a property manager. What makes them different is their focus on people and community. These are benefits for the companies that locate there.

As a result, we created messaging that’s people-centric and highlights the community offerings at Stanford Research Park.

The copy on the site is meant to attract innovative companies and strikes a balance between professional and aspirational. Keeping with the human-centered messaging, we highlighted the Stanford Research Park team’s values while avoiding a traditional listing of them.

The photo style of the site aligns with the elevated design aesthetic. Images are intentionally saturated without feeling overly manipulated. This creates visual consistency across locations that are architecturally significantly different.

We created video treatments and produced a video and photography shoot over four days that produced a brand video that makes a case to companies, a textural video that showcases the experience of being there, and an informational video that highlights their SRPGO transportation program.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was balancing the need to convey both information for prospects and a sense of place. The information architecture, data hierarchy, and experience design of the site work together to guide a visitor’s experience.

The most frequently needed items were placed in the primary navigation, with lower priority needs available.

Ultimately, the Stanford Research Park site is serving two main audiences – companies looking for space and the people who work in Stanford Research Park. The site is built and written to take both audiences into account with video experiences that speak to both.