(RE)ARCHITECTING A BRAND THROUGH ITS WEB PRESENCE

Founded by Bill Gates in 1989, Corbis grew to house premier photography collections, including the Bettmann Archive, Sygma collection, and ZEFA, plus digital reproduction rights for art from prestigious museums worldwide.

As Executive Creative Director, I inherited a fractured brand experience—the result of numerous acquisitions—and a flawed licensing system causing significant revenue loss through abandoned transactions. My approach balanced stakeholder sensitivities with necessary improvements: reorganizing the brand architecture, repairing the checkout process, and refreshing the visual identity without alienating established users. Given the high-profile nature of this flagship project, I executed the core design work personally while guiding my team through implementation.

The portfolio examples below demonstrate:

• Homepage transformation showing subtle yet impactful improvements

• Brand architecture reorganization that informed the site's information architecture

• Redesigned homepage emphasizing imagery over text with improved user access and flow

• Enhanced navigation system implementation for desktop

• Photographer profile pages that served dual purposes—giving users another browse pathway while providing content creators with personalized showcases for their work

• Wireframe structure for the Photographer profile page revealing the template framework

Note: Corbis was acquired by Visual China Group, with the image licensing rights outside China subsequently managed by Getty Images.