Tough Problems, Solved Visually.
The Shaw Festival is the second largest theatre festival in North America, and world-renowned for its powerful, provocative acting. It was time for them to look the part.
In 2017 The Shaw Festival brought on a new Art Director. His vision was to modernize The Shaw, adding in contemporary theatre to some of the classics that The Shaw was known for. His hope was to attract a younger crowd, to increase sales in a demographic that had yet to be tapped, while still maintaining their older loyal patrons.
Client: The Shaw Festival
Agency: Key Gordon
Creative Director: Jordan Puopolo
Art Director: Jordan St.Claire Snyder
Photographers: Peter Andrew Lusztyk
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Before
The design was bright, with many different colour options, used everywhere.
On the posters, the use of colour was dynamic, but on the website it was overpowering. This took attention away from the plays and made the site harder to navigate. -
After
With the re-design we wanted to treat the website as the backdrop, allowing the plays to be the main focus.
It was important to make a grid that was easy for The Shaw’s marketing team to update, and that when the season changed, the website would not compete with the new imagery. We crafted a durable but interesting grid and reduced the colour palette down to black, white, and The Shaw red.
The new design simplified the flow of the website, and made sure that the mobile design was an easy ticket-buying experience. Nailing the mobile experience increased sales as we discovered that mobile was the primary ticket-buying view for the new demographic that The Shaw was trying to reach.
Cleaning up the flow, increasing the type size, and adding in more white space also benefited the older audience.
Ticket sales increased, the Shaw marketing team saved countless hours that were once spent grappling with a clunky old CMS, and the site earned The Shaw critical acclaim from the Globe and Mail.
