Making complex scientific data accessible
Project Background
The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) is one of Canada's most rigorous scientific organizations — monitoring the health of Alberta's species, habitats, and ecosystems to provide the data and tools that land managers, policy makers, and conservationists rely on. Their work is complex, vital, and deeply connected to the natural world they study.
I’ve been privileged to work alongside ABMI for several years evolving.their brand, rebuilding their digital presence, and created tools and materials that help communicate their scientific work to audiences ranging from government bodies, to field researchers, to the general public.
*This project was done at Sonder Creative. Development was done in-house at ABMI.
Project Scope
Brand Creation and Visual Identity System
Website Design (UI + UX)
Digital Tools (UI + UX)
Print Design
My Contributions
Creative Direction and Lead Designer
Brand Creation and Visual Identity System
Website Design (UI + UX)
Print Design
Website home page (hero section)
Opportunity
ABMI's work sits at the intersection of rigorous science and broad public relevance.
Their monitoring data informs land-use decisions across Alberta, but the complexity of their work makes it difficult to communicate clearly to the full range of stakeholders. ABMI serves multiple audiences at once including scientists, land managers, policy makers, industry partners, and the public. Varying levels of technical familiarity and needs posed a challenge.
The brand needs to communicate rigour and authority without alienating non-specialist audiences.
ABMI has a growing digital ecosystem. Their website needs to accommodate a rapidly growing library of projects, reports, and tools — with a navigation and information architecture that could make it easy to navigate.
The ABMI logo reflects natural elements in our Alberta landscape: mountains, grasslands and prairies, and wetlands. It also shows the connection and integration of these elements to make a greater picture.
Insights
ABMI's value lies not just in the data it collects, but in making that data actionable for the people who need it.
Navigation is a science communication problem. ABMI's website is more than a marketing site, it's a working resource for researchers, land managers, and policy teams who need to find specific projects, reports, and data. The information architecture and navigation design had to be as rigorous as the science it supported.
Interactivity transforms how data is understood. Although static graphics and downloadable reports are still necessary on the ABMI site, their resources also include Interactive tools such as the Biodiversity Browser, online reporting dashboards, resources feeds, and a staff directory. These formats allow users to explore ABMI's data in different ways that can reveal connections that would be invisible in a PDF. The design of these tools is as important as the data they contain.
Draw identity from Alberta itself. Alberta's biodiversity, its landscapes, silhouettes, organic forms, and colour ranges provided the most authentic and compelling visual language for ABMI's brand. Rather than imposing a corporate aesthetic, the design system drew directly from the subject matter: greens and earth-tones, organic curves from natural forms, and real imagery and photography of Alberta and its species.
ABMI main website interior page
Biodiversity Browser is an interactive tool allowing users to explore species status and trends across Alberta's landscapes.
ABMI main website staff directory
Biodiversity browser filterable categories
Biodiversity Browser species list that can be filtered or searched
Project page with easy-to-access related resources
Graphics that are used in online reporting for taxonomic groups
Results
Our work together has resulted in a system that compounds over time.
Continuous collaboration have produced a design system with genuine depth. It’s consistent enough to maintain coherence across dozens of outputs and flexible enough to accommodate everything ABMI has grown into and will grow into next.
The refreshed ABMI identity draws directly from Alberta's natural landscape — giving the organization a visual language that is authentically rooted in its subject matter, and distinctly its own within the Canadian scientific community.
ABMI now has a digital ecosystem that serves scientists, land managers, and the public from a single, coherent platform. Features such as the website's mega-menu navigation to the interactive Biodiversity Browser and data download portal ensure that ABMI can effectively share the breadth of their work with all the necessary audiences.
The print design system established consistent templates for annual reports, while still allowing different features and focus year-by-year.
