Information Architecture, Web Design

Rebuilding a Hall of Fame Around Its Archive

I redesigned the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame site around Medicine Avenue 3, its new content platform. The old site could not hold it.

View the live site

Impact

award pages on the live site: 100+
pages on the old site: 129
navigation pillars: 6
months, brief to launch: 15+

Award pages counted October 2026. Launched early January 2026.

Role and timeline

I led UX and UI design: information architecture, navigation, and a design system the client now runs on its own. I ran the project day to day, alongside full client work. Relevate Health, 2024–2026.

Problem

The new archive did not fit the old site.

The Medical Advertising Hall of Fame had a new content platform, Medicine Avenue 3: award winners, editorial Trends, and video. The old site had 129 pages, nearly all inductee profiles, with nothing connecting them. Medicine Avenue 3 had to be part of the site, not a patch on it.

Medicine Avenue opens with the five advertising eras.

Content first

I started where the problem was clearest: the content.

I structured Medicine Avenue 3 before touching the site map. The content was sorted by era but had no path through it. So I set one rule: forward momentum. Every page points to what comes next: another winner, another era, a related Trend.

Every page points to what comes next, so no page is a dead end.

Each era page opens with a video and keeps the rest of the site one click away in the rail.

The 2010 to 2014 era page. A video of a presenter sits on the left. A rail on the right holds an era picker and a list of Trends links.

Scope change

Moving one section would have broken the old site.

Future Famers looked like a fit for Medicine Avenue 3. But it’s an honor tied to the awards dinner, so it stayed in Honor. Moving it would leave a gap with no clean fix. So I audited the full site. The result: six pillars, with every business flow intact.

Future Famers was considered for Medicine Avenue. It’s an honor tied to the awards dinner, so it stayed in Honor.

The planned sitemap from September 2025: six pillars, with Future Famers in Honor.

A sitemap: Home above six pillars, Medicine Ave, Honor, Cultivate, Change, About, and Contact Us. Future Famers, under Honor, is blue. Two Cultivate pages have dashed outlines (gated or hidden).
What moved: FAQ and Media Partners into About, Career Accelerator and LEAP into Cultivate, Contact Us into a footer band.

A two-column table of what moved. FAQ and Media Partners were folded into About. Career Accelerator and LEAP became sections in Cultivate. Contact Us became a slice above the footer on every page.

Cut anchor nav

I tested a sticky anchor nav, then cut it.

With 100+ award pages, I tested a sticky bar to jump to a year. Against real content volume, it added complexity without enough payoff. So I cut it. Every winner page got a side rail instead: the award details, the other winners that year, and a Back button to the era. The era pages carry the Trends. No page is a dead end.

A winner page links on to the other winners that year and back up to the era.

A ten-second click path on the live site: era, winner, another winner, back to the era, then a Trend.

A ten-second screen recording of mahf.com: an era page, a 2013 winner, another 2013 winner from the right rail, back to the era page, then a Trend page. No sound.
The 2013 awards on the 2010 to 2014 era page.

The 2013 Awards on the 2010 to 2014 era page: three winner cards, each with an ad image, the winner's title and agency, and a "View Winner" link.

Custom build

A theme was faster. Custom gave the client full control.

My manager and I asked the Relevate Health development team, then slated to build the site, about a WordPress theme versus a custom build. A theme launches faster but is hard to customize. A custom build takes longer but fits exactly. We put the choice to the Relevate Health CEO and chose custom, so the site would work the way MAHF needed. A development partner then joined.

Five features a standard theme would have needed workarounds for. The custom build has them built in.

The Honor mega menu, with an image card for each section.

The Honor menu open on the MAHF home page. Six image cards run across the page: Overview, Annual Awards Dinner, MAHF Inductees, Future Famers, Creative Luminary Awards, and Innovator Awards.
The Trends feed, filterable by category.

The Trends page. A row of category buttons (AI Transformation, Audience Targeting, Behavioral Shifts, and more) sits above a grid of Trend cards.
The Career Accelerator page as a visitor sees it before signing in: a password prompt.

The Career Accelerator Series page for a visitor who is not signed in: a password-protected message, an empty password field, and a Submit button.

Outcome

The Executive Director now updates the site without me.

It launched in early January 2026, slightly ahead of schedule, with six-pillar navigation, a visual mega menu, and password-protected content. Every original business flow carried over. Since launch, the Executive Director has published the 2026 inductees, award winners, Future Famers, news, and a podcast on her own. LEAP sign-ups rose from 15 in 2025 to 21 in 2026, with 3 more on the waitlist.

Impact

award pages on the live site: 100+
pages on the old site: 129
navigation pillars: 6
months, brief to launch: 15+

Award pages counted October 2026. Launched early January 2026.

What the client said

Executive Director, Medical Advertising Hall of Fame

“I just wanted to say how amazing the new website looks! I’ve been a part of several website redesigns and I’ve never seen one move this fast. Seriously, congrats!”

Credits

Executive Director, MAHF: client lead; now updates the site.
Brand agency, creative lead: brand direction for the new identity.
Development partner: built the site to our specifications.
Relevate Health CEO and MAHF co-chair: backed the custom build.
Senior Director of UX and Studio, Relevate Health: my manager; helped set up project management, requirements, and key stakeholder meetings.

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