UCLA’s Digital Collections serve as the primary source of essential information for staff and students, as well as the general public, so consistency is key. Having collaborated with UCLA before, Funkhaus was brought on to fast-track a large-scale rework of this foundational resource. To take their extensive digital collection from disconnected and disjointed across an ecosystem of sites, we ideated and built a unified, sophisticated, and scalable component library that could be used flexibly across multiple layouts while maintaining a singular design language.
UCLA Digital Library
Frameworking a unified design system for a leading institution
Strategy
Expanding and unifying UCLA’s design language for usability and growth
This project was not about reinvention, but expansion—elevating UCLA’s digital presence while reinforcing its established visual identity. We worked within their existing design framework with the goal of making their web infrastructure more adaptable, scalable, and intuitive for both developers and users.
Through extensive stakeholder interviews, including faculty, librarians, researchers, and students, we gained deep insights into UCLA’s needs, giving us what we needed to deliver a system that balances institutional rigor with modern web usability
Design
Precision in design for a highly structured academic environment
In a university setting where standardization is essential, precision becomes the foundation of effective design. We built and refined a system of modular components that meets UCLA’s strict guidelines while remaining intuitive and easy to navigate. Every detail—from search taxonomies to data-visualization modules—was created to strengthen the user experience and evolve alongside UCLA’s digital ecosystem.
Digital
A scalable system to support UCLA’s future
The core challenge of this project lay in the sheer scale of it, and the need for a unified, structured system that their internal team could seamlessly adopt. The final deliverable was more than a component library—it was a strategic toolkit designed to enable UCLA to build, scale, and evolve their digital properties with unprecedented efficiency.
