Leading by Design:
Building JAVEM.org
When I became the sole web designer for the Journal of Audiovisual Ethnomusicology at JAVEM.org, I didn’t step into a traditional leadership role. At first, there was no title, and no team to manage. Instead, I was the first and only web designer, tasked with bringing an academic vision to life online. This meant designing not only a user experience, but also the digital identity of a new scholarly journal dedicated to audiovisual ethnomusicology. This wasn’t just about making a website look better—it was about leading a process that honored the voices involved while championing the strategic value of design. I was taking on the responsibility of building an entire a digital presence for a start-up organization with passionate stakeholders, a fragmented vision, and a deep mission.
JAVEM didn’t just need a website—it needed a platform that respected the rigor of academic publishing, embraced the complexity of multimedia scholarship, and served as a functional, elegant, and trustworthy destination for readers, contributors, and editors alike. It was both a creative opportunity and a leadership challenge—one where I had to navigate multiple stakeholder perspectives, advocate for essential design principles, and ensure that the final product was not just beautiful, but meaningful.
Designing from Zero
With JAVEM, I was starting from zero—just an organizatinal mission, a name, and a small group of passionate editors and scholars.
The first challenge was clarity: what exactly should an audiovisual academic journal look like online? What did “good” even mean in this context? I quickly realized that I wasn’t just building a website—I was shaping how the burgenoning field of audiovisual ethnomusicology would be represented and accessed digitally—both to the public and to scholars in the more established ethnomusicological field.
At the same time, the stakeholders—academic editors, contributors, and reviewers—came from a wide range of scholarly backgrounds. Many had never worked with a designer before. Others were highly detail-oriented, with strong opinions on content structure, citation visibility, and long-term digital preservation. Most were not familiar with web design principles or best practices.
When I stepped in, I found myself surrounded by stakeholders with strong investments in the organization but very different (and often conflicting) ideas about what the website should do. Some wanted more storytelling, others wanted streamlined resources. Some believed the homepage should have a manifesto-style essay; others envisioned video banners and animated statistics.
From day one, I knew I’d need to lead the process by building trust, translating needs into strategy, and showing—through process and prototype—how design could support and elevate their mission.
My first move? I stopped designing, and I started listening.
Listening, Framing, Leading
My first step was research and relationship-building. I held a series of meetings with editors and advisors to understand the journal’s goals, intended audience, publishing model, and academic standards. I asked questions like:
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What should set JAVEM apart from other academic journals?
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Who are we designing for?
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How do users engage with audiovisual scholarship differently from text-based work?
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What are the accessibility and archival needs of the journal?
Those conversations helped me do more than gather requirements—they helped build trust. People felt heard, and I began to notice something shift: stakeholders were more open to being guided. They weren’t just waiting to approve a finished product—they were ready to be part of a process.
I then distilled these insights into a high-level brief: the site needed to be clean, accessible, visually neutral (to let the scholarship shine), and capable of integrating video and audio content seamlessly. It had to be easy for readers to navigate, easy for editors to manage, and credible in the eyes of academic institutions.
Designing with Principle, Not Preference: Bridging the Design Literacy Gap
As I began designing the core architecture and visual language of the site, I encountered some natural friction between design best practices and stakeholder preferences. For instance, some editors felt the homepage should be highly text-driven—reflecting the academic seriousness of the journal—while I knew that long blocks of text would overwhelm users and obscure the journal’s multimedia focus.
I didn’t dismiss their input. Instead, I prototyped multiple layouts and walked them through each one, showing how visual hierarchy, whitespace, and clean typography could actually improve readability and elevate the perceived quality of the journal.
I also emphasized how design could serve their strategic goals—like increasing readership, encouraging citations, and attracting submissions—by making the content more accessible and discoverable.
Data helped, too. I pulled basic analytics on similar sites showing that most users visited the site on mobile and often dropped off quickly. Although, stakeholders wanted users to open the site on desktop primarily, I gave weight to my advocacy for mobile-first, streamlined design that would engage users and leave them wanting more, transitioning to desktop.
These conversations required patience, empathy, and sometimes, gentle resistance. But over time, stakeholders began to see design not as decoration, but as a vital part of the journal’s academic mission. That balance—of protecting user experience and respecting stakeholder voice—is a key part of what I now consider design leadership.
Building the Experience
From there, I built the full site architecture: landing pages, article layouts, editorial bios, submission guidelines, and an issue archive that could grow over time. I developed a custom structure for publishing content that included embedded video, audio, and transcripts—all while ensuring accessibility, responsiveness, and long-term maintainability.
Every element—from font selection to navigation flow—was designed with care, intention, and collaboration. I paid close attention to how users would discover and move through the site, and how editors would update and manage content in the long run.
To support the editorial team post-launch, I created custom documentation and trained key contributors on how to upload new content and maintain visual consistency. In this way, I wasn’t just delivering a product—I was creating a sustainable ecosystem for scholarly publishing.
Design Leadership in Action
While I didn’t have a team reporting to me, this project taught me more about design leadership than any titled role ever could. I had to:
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Translate vision into execution, with no blueprint.
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Navigate communication dynamics with highly invested, non-design stakeholders.
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Advocate for user experience while honoring academic integrity.
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Facilitate alignment, not by dictating decisions, but by asking the right questions and providing the right options.
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Educate as I designed, so that stakeholders felt empowered, not alienated, by the design process.
Lasting Impact
The launch of JAVEM.org marked more than the start of a journal—it signaled a step forward for how academic multimedia could be presented and experienced online. Contributors were thrilled to see their work showcased in a space that felt both scholarly and engaging. Readers could navigate content intuitively, stream high-quality media, and access transcripts—all in a lightweight, focused environment.
Behind the scenes, the editorial team grew more confident in their relationship to the digital space. Through collaborative workshops, transparent process, and consistent framing of design as a user-first, goal-driven discipline, they no longer saw web design as a black box, but as a critical piece of their publishing strategy. And for me, that cultural shift—toward valuing design as an intellectual and strategic partner—was the most rewarding outcome. Stakeholders who once saw design as “making it look nice” began to ask questions like, “How will this affect our user flow?” or “What’s the best place for this story to live?” That change, to me, is the real mark of a design leader.
Lasting Learning
This experience shaped how I view design leadership: not as a position, but as a mindset. It’s about taking initiative in the face of ambiguity. It’s about listening deeply, framing the problem thoughtfully, and bringing others along with you toward a shared outcome. And it’s about protecting the user’s experience even when no one else is thinking about it yet.
More than anything, building JAVEM.org taught me how to lead without authority—to create momentum through clarity, empathy, and craft. That’s a skill I carry with me into every project. It also showed me that the work of advocating for design never really stops. Even in small teams—or solo roles—you’re always translating, always facilitating, always connecting the dots between vision and execution.
Whether I’m designing solo or working with a team, I aim to create systems that are thoughtful, human-centered, and built to last. I want to continue leading projects where design is strategic, not superficial—where collaboration drives innovation, and where every pixel serves a purpose.
Because for me, design leadership isn’t about being in charge.
It’s about being in service—of the users, of the mission, and of the people bold enough to create something new.
So whether I have a team behind me or I’m the only designer in the room—I know how to lead.
And I know that design is never just about pixels. It’s about people.
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