Old is the New
I’ve been introduced to a new era of event planning and doing events. With this exciting and new startup on the horizon, I’ve been lucky to work with a great team bringing it to life.
What exactly is my role in all of this?
In very much all start up’s life it’s a bit of everything in a very short time. Although I worked on multiple improvements in design and UX writing I’m going to share my process on their new Responsive Home Page Design & Storytelling.
Who are we designing for?
As with most startups you create, develop and change. This was no different and I had the opportunity to create a fresh and new looking experience.
We are designing for inclusivity, anyone from anywhere and for everyone.
From users looking to plan events themselves to finding event planners for their events.
There were two sides to this business:
- Users exploring, finding and creating events
- Users listing their business and selling their services/products
My Design Thinking
I knew those first impressions last, and we could lose anyone in just a few seconds.
I focused on the message first
I’ve probably spent most of my time getting the right wording and emotions either through images, illustrations, and white space.
I’ve played around with multiple iterations and variations, and ended up with the following:
- Heading: “Make memorable events that last a lifetime” — this really captures the human experience why we attend events. Life is all about experiences.
- Description: “Explore the world events” — playing on their slogan it followed naturally with the heading. Now is the time to create those memorable experiences.
- Action: “What type of event are you planning?” — Quick one field input guiding the user to their next step is as easy as one entry.
Then came the hero image
As mentioned I played around with images to illustrations but I searched for an image that tells a story of the new beginnings, building from the old times of planning events to the new way.
Why the polaroid camera? — It’s all about connection
It speaks of a time an older time where we used these popular polaroids to capture memories — and not only any memory, special memories once you’ve taken it you can’t delete it.
It’s memorable, it’s popular and it’s now vintage but we have a new polaroid camera — Instagram. When it started it used this polaroid camera in their skeuomorphic icon design to illustrate something from the old but new, better. Only recently they moved away from this connection because they don’t need the connection anymore they are the new “polaroid camera”.
This bought me back to where we are. We are taking from the old way of doing events and making it new and better but we are not — Instagram, yet we need that connection to something relatable.
Tell your story — short, easy human-friendly words
Events are like storytelling you either tell your story about how you are planning one or you tell your story of your experience at an event.
This was no different each section tells a story.
It’s for anyone:
Heading: Events build for you by you
Description: We are breaking away from the little black books to events for anyone, from anywhere and for everyone.
It’s modern and easy to use:
It’s a world where you tell us what you need, you connect with the vendors that met those needs and you receive quotes from which you can choose.
What can you find?
I used the words “freedom and explore” to create this concept of choice and options. Using the current testimonials and reviews lets the user see our credibility and that “you don’t have to take our word for it”.
It’s a platform for event creators and entrepreneurs
Not only are we creating a platform for users to plan and create events we are also a platform to list services and vendors.
So what “Really improved”
Change for change's sake is never a good enough reason. Our change leads to improvement.
- Aligned message and complementing design for our users
- Simplified navigation made it easier to find what users are looking for
- Meaningful storytelling from the first seconds all the way to the footer
- Hero section that adds value — entice the user
- The new modern design language appeals to our users
- Exploration feeling for not- goal specific users
- Simplified footer for secondary actions to not distract the user from the overwhelming footer actions
Thank you
This is not a one-man effort, throughout the project, I worked closely with the team in designing a clean UI and align with their core message.
