Case study
Media Website for a Theatre Archive
An interdisciplinary theatre company with two decades of plays, films, education programs, and events, and an archive stuck on an incomplete Squarespace site.
I built them a new site from the ground up: planning where everything would live, sketching and wireframing each page type, then designing and coding it.
The company’s name, logo, and photos have been changed for this case study.
- Client
- Theatre company (name changed)
- Deliverable
- Archive website
- Role
- Strategy, wireframes, design & development
01 — Challenge
Two decades of work with nowhere to live
Stage productions, video plays, animated shorts, documentaries, awards, events and press had piled up over twenty years, on a site that was never finished. Visitors needed to find work by the kind of work it was, and the company needed a site it could keep adding to.
02 — Strategy
Seven collections, two templates
I mapped every collection before drawing a page. Productions, video plays, shorts and documentaries all carry the same information (who made it, who was in it, what it looked like), so they share one production template. Awards, events and press are stories, so they share an article template.
Then I sketched each page type on paper and wireframed the templates.
Homepage → 9 category tiles → 7 collections, sharing two templates:
Production page template
Mainstage Productions · Video Plays · Animated Shorts · Documentaries
Article page template
Awards · Special Events · News & Press
03 — Design & build
A dark stage for the work
The site is dark like a theatre, so the photos carry the colour. Each archive category gets its own tint, which turns the homepage grid into a map of the collection.
04 — Outcome
One template, every kind of production
A new production only needs its credits and photos; the template does the rest. The same structure carries a full stage production and a two-line animated short.
Have a project like this?
Let's talk about who you're trying to reach and what you need them to understand. Send me an email at hello@piyawillwerth.com.