The Elephant in the (Class)room
New Teacher Center is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering educators with coaching and professional learning support across all levels of the school system. “The Elephant in the (Class)room” serves as a specialized microsite for NTC, designed as a dynamic hub for learning, inspiration, and actionable resources. This adaptable platform evolves over time, providing engaging, immersive, and interactive content, including user submission and downloadable resources, all conveniently housed in one accessible website.
Client
New Teacher Center
Skills
Creative direction, wireframing, design, cross-team collaboration, development
01
Creative Direction // Design
Designing the Elephant
Inspired by its name, The Elephant in the (Class)room, our design concept for this microsite revolves around the idea of negative space. Rather than taking a literal approach, we used negative space to symbolize the removal or de-emphasis of the "elephant" (the problem), allowing the focus to shift towards solutions. This concept is reflected in the design through interactive elements such as sliding panels that reveal hidden content, scroll-based animations to unveil or scale down information, and the use of shapes overlaying images. These design choices create an engaging and dynamic user experience, where information is gradually revealed, encouraging exploration and interaction.
02
Illustration // Parallax Animation
Parallax animated storytelling
The website journey commenced with an immersive parallax animation, skillfully illustrated by Vicki Turner, introducing visitors to New Teacher Center’s mission and The Elephant in the (Class)room’s vision — the three equity anchors. Several months post-launch, the parallax feature was transformed into an animated video, streamlining access to content below the experience for returning visitors. Additional illustrations by Vicki enrich this narrative, showcased in the gallery below.
