︎ Courtesy of Unseen Amsterdam

Redesign for leading contemporary photography platform

Previously Unseen Amsterdam’s website focussed heavily on their annual event in september. Most users were unaware of their work throughout the rest of the year. My task was guiding the project team  to combine all Unseen’s work in a redesigned platform.

Goal
Merge the festival experience of Unseen Amsterdam and their corporate story in a redesign of their current website.

Objectives

1. Improve navigation
2. Improve visual design and online brand identity
3. Create overview of Unseen Amsterdam’s  work
4. Drive sales of festival tickets
5. Engage visitors with festival through online activation

We started with some quick wins with new header styles, use of grids and being more consistent with how components looked on the platform. The main navigation was an obvious first big issue the team tackled. Working together with visual designers from agency VandeJong and in close collaboration with the client a new site plan, information hierarchy and redesign for the website navigation were born. It focusses heavily on ease of use and a clearer distinction between the event and Unseen as a company. A button for tickets was also immediately implemented in the redesign to help PR and sales reach their targets.

Throughout the years Unseen has created a good reputation with photographers and galleries alike. We felt the need for a complete overview of photographers, galleries and other participants of Unseen’s five prior festivals. We created an archive where the user can easily navigate through the different categories and filter accordingly.

With this we gave Unseen’s hard work it’s well deserved stage. Lastly a custom voting tool was created where users could vote for 1 of 5 photographers, each nominated for the Unseen talent award to engage users more with the brand.