Knowledge Lab

Problem

The Knowledge Lab — a research organization studying artificial intelligence and its role in society — had outgrown its WordPress site in nearly every direction. The content was disorganized, the design felt dated, and the platform couldn't keep pace with a rapidly expanding library of news articles, publications, and events. The lab's lead researcher had a clear vision: something modern and visually ambitious that would reflect the caliber of the work happening inside it. The site also needed to scale gracefully as the content continued to grow, and it needed to be genuinely maintainable by a non-technical editorial team.

Decision

Migrating to the Gatsby, Contentful, and Netlify stack addressed the performance and maintainability problems, but the real design challenge was content modeling. The Knowledge Lab's editorial team needed to surface the same content across multiple dimensions simultaneously — by year, date, category, type, and author — which required careful planning of how content types related to each other in Contentful. Getting this right meant the site could grow in volume without becoming harder to navigate. On the design side, a Lottie animation on the homepage added an interactive, motion-driven first impression that matched the researcher's vision for something visually distinctive.

Outcome

The editorial team took full ownership of the site after launch and actively maintains it today — a handoff that went smoothly because the content structure was built around how they actually work. The site now presents a growing body of research, events, and publications in a way that feels organized rather than overwhelming, with flexible filtering that puts the right content in front of the right reader. The homepage animation became a signature moment that sets the tone for the lab's identity online.