The Communications Technology Laboratory at NIST advances the technologies that power modern communications and functions as an unbiased source of trusted measurements and standards for government and industry. CTL is investing in six strategic research roadmaps that guide five-to-seven-year priorities across areas such as 6G, Spectrum Science, and Quantum Communications.
CTL engaged me to rebrand the lab and redesign the public homepage so external stakeholders could understand these roadmaps quickly. Across an 8-month engagement with the Chief of Staff, I created a Spectrum Violet-led palette with supporting blues and grays to convey forward-looking spectrum innovation while maintaining federal trust. Spectrum is a limited national resource and a national R&D priority, which reinforced this color choice.
The underlying site framework locked the sidebar and banners, so I rebuilt navigation as flexible image tiles with embedded links. Each Roadmap received a distinct identity image, and I used Adobe generative tools to size and crop assets for any required ratio without quality loss, giving CTL an update-friendly system for future content growth.
Strategic Need
CTL is organizing long-horizon work into six research roadmaps that will guide priorities over the next five to seven years. The public homepage had to introduce these areas clearly to visiting policymakers, industry partners, and researchers.
Constraints
The host platform locked the global sidebar and header banners. Page content had to be delivered as image blocks with embedded hyperlinks, requiring careful planning for responsiveness, accessibility, and future updates.
My Role
Lead designer. Partnered with the CTL Chief of Staff for 8 months to define brand direction, build the visual system, create image-tile navigation, and deliver production assets in approved formats.
Brand Strategy Moves
Palette anchored in Spectrum Violet with complementary blues and grays to signal spectrum leadership and technology depth while preserving institutional credibility. Spectrum’s status as a limited national resource and national R&D priority made the spectrum color story meaningful to stakeholders.
Roadmap-driven navigation: unique identity image for each of CTL’s five strategic roadmaps gives instant orientation and supports modular updates as priorities evolve.
Image-only build overcame template lock. Designed grid ratios and safe-area overlays so links remain legible across breakpoints where CMS text layers were unavailable.
Execution Highlights
Identity art was gathered and then refined in Adobe Creative Suite, then resized across multiple aspect ratios using generative fills to preserve fidelity and focal elements without re-shoots. Assets exported as optimized images with embedded links mapped to Roadmap destinations.
Outcome
The redesigned homepage delivered a branded, stakeholder-friendly entry point and a scalable asset model that CTL can update as Roadmap content grows. Roadmaps are now a central organizing device for CTL’s forward strategy.
