Columbia Manhattanville is an ambitious initiative more than a decade in the making. Brooklyn Digital Foundry worked with the university’s Communications team and the Office of the President to craft a modern website and video to invite conversation, promotion, and celebration of this milestone achievement.
Columbia University Manhattanville Reinventing a city campus for the twenty-first century.
Section 1.Completing the story with video.
In addition to our web and brand work with Columbia, our visualization team created a video that introduces the Manhattanville campus to the world. The video matches the website in brand look and feel, and opens the story of the site.
Section 2.A distinct yet recognizable “Columbia.”
Major initiatives have a long launch window, especially in cases where buildings open over successive years and institutional rhythms of fundraising and enrollment are cyclical. To build a platform capable of delivering nuanced communications over several years, we drew on comparative research as well as our years of experience within education, architecture and cultural arenas to carefully balance brand and technical agendas.
We developed the site based on a unique visual identity created for the campus – featuring a striking angular motif inspired by the city’s streets. The visual language of the site is modern, but works within and amplifies the overarching Columbia University brand. The video echoed that approach, emerging as the perfect piece of portable media, appearing online, at events, and in presentations to a diverse set of university constituents.
