Theatre Philadelphia turned to I-SITE to design a new website to celebrate and promote professional theatre in the Greater Philadelphia region. Led by a group of local artistic and managing theatre leaders, the organization is best known for its annual Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre.
Key goals for the redesign project included:
- Create a beautiful and bold responsive design
- Deliver improved presentation and search feature for the shows
- Social media integration for Twitter and Facebook
- Development of a more manageable and flexible backend to better suit the organization’s needs
The I-SITE team worked closely with Theatre Philadelphia board member Anne Shuff and Administrative Director Joel Sumner to first review the current site and map out a new architecture, feature set and design direction for the website. It was agreed that the previous site did not take advantage of the wealth of fine photography provided by area theatres that include The Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre, 1812 Productions among others.
Major consideration in wireframing and design was given to the growing number of theatre lovers looking for information on shows and latest news from the theatre community on their smart phones. The navigation was simplified and new search tools introduced for shows and the Barrymore Awards.
I-SITE proposed building the new website on the Drupal 7 CMS. Theatre Philadelphia already had experience with managing the website on the previous Drupal 6 platform. I-SITE was able to bring its deep experience in building Drupal websites and customized modules for William Penn Foundation, The Painted Bride and Downtown New York among others.
At all stages of design and development key members of the theater community were involved in discussions and evaluations to ensure that the site would be optimized for their needs as well as for the ticket buying public.
I-SITE provided CMS training for key staff and continues to offer ongoing consulting, hosting and support.
The I-SITE team continued its long-term love affair with New York with the redesign of the Downtown Alliance’s website for visitors, residents and businesses.
With an extensive set of features, listings and content for multiple audiences, the I-SITE team collaborated closely with Alliance staff on mapping out a new architecture and features set that would deliver a greatly improved experience to site visitors looking for both information and inspiration.
The fully responsive design is rich in vibrant photography that helps communicate the ongoing revitalization of Lower Manhattan for live, work and play. New customized mapping and search tools were developed to deliver easy access to listings and events on mobile devices as well as desktop computers.
Key features of the new site include:
- Custom searchable maps for locating restaurants, hotels, events and much more.
- Full event list calendar with category filtering and maps.
- New My Visit Planner for saving events and listings to share with friends and family.
- Video testimonials from a host of industry leaders talking about the benefit of locating In Lower Manhattan.
- Improved social Media integration for Twitter and Instagram.
Post-launch the I-SITE team suppported the website, working closely with the Alliance on adding new features and enhancements.
Lower Manhattan is rapidly becoming the place for creative and tech start-ups as well as big industry names to locate or relocate. Already 800+ tech firms and startups, major brands, agencies and media companies have set up in LM including such names as Condé Nast, Paperless Post and Fast Company.
In response to the rapid growth of the community The Downtown Alliance and design firm Gensler have created Lower Manhattan HQ aka LMHQ, an exciting new collaboration space at 150 Broadway featuring event space with state of the art A/V, meeting & brainstorming rooms, coffee bar and programming by NY Tech Meetup and NY Tech Council.
I-SITE was challenged with designing and developing the website to launch LMHQ and create excitement in the community about everything the space has to offer. Goals included:
- Clean, functional design
- Clearly communicate the vision and spirit of the space and staff
- Strong call-to-actions to drive membership
- Social media integration to create energy in the community
The look and feel for the site was created around the LMHQ brand and colors with enough flexibility to integrate dynamic photography and imagery. All the pages are fully responsive to accommodate the large number of community members using their smartphones and tablets.
I-SITE continues to support the LMHQ team with the maintenance of the website and integration of new features.
In 2013 Hidden City Philadelphia approached I-SITE to design and develop a website and web application for their site-specific Festival. The goal was to develop and engage a passionate community of festival supporters and participants inspired by a ‘kickstarter’ community-driven model.
Phase I of the website was focused on promoting the Hidden City sites, the artists and their projects. Festival supporters were able to create user accounts and donate not only money but the valuable volunteer time and project materials that are vital to seeing artist project through to fruition. The I-SITE team selected Ruby on Rails for the CMS and website because it is a clean and efficient web framework for building robust web applications.
The next phase of the project involved addition of Events features and ticketing through project partner Ticket Leap.
For more information on this project and if your interested in creating something similar for your organization contact Ian Cross.
