Subject Matter

The situation

Addressing issues like mental illness, chronic pain, or opioid addiction is difficult. The team behind Subject Matter make it their goal to fundamentally change current practices and policies. The research lab focuses on those three issues and commits their research to empowering people.

When the team approached us, they were just “a health research lab within the Sinai Health System”. A clean slate with no name, brand identity or website. We needed to plan for an introduction to the world that spoke directly about their impact and how their approach goes beyond research.

The Subject Matter team firmly believes that the best approach to a patient’s treatment is multifaceted. Starting viewpoints from this perspective helped treatments reflect the complex and intertwined nature of the conditions. With countless ongoing projects and work to showcase, their team needed a name, identity and website that could connect all pieces of work together. They needed an increase of recognizability without leaning too far into their clinical or Sinai roots while also bringing trust to the community, starting with a name.

The solution for Subject Matter was to simplify their clients needs while they deal with complex issues. Providing information and communicating without extra jargon was our top priority. We focused our thinking around the concept of “centralization” as a representation of how Subject Matter focuses on real world problems and gives a pointed viewpoint through their research.

This concept lead us to the logomark which symbolizes two arrows pointing towards the center, acting as a point of focus. With a simplistic logomark, the brand is able to scale easily across multiple platforms.

When dealing with such complex issues, the website for Subject Matter needed to be straightforward for users. To visually represent the concept of finding a way out of complex problems, lines are used throughout the site layout to guide users to their necessary info faster. In order to counter the sterile, gridded style, we made sure to use the bright and vibrant Subject Matter blue paired with hand-drawn iconography when needed to lighten the atmosphere.

For a growing research lab, we made sure the CMS behind Subject Matter was tailored for ease so the team could focus on their work. This allowed for a lightweight website that could load in no time, making their user retention numbers remain steady throughout the site.