It’s always a pleasure to get a call from Declan or Phil at Playgroup HQ requesting a new festival website design. They have been one of my most regular clients in recent years and we have developed a solid working relationship. Playgroup Festival is very popular – set to host around 5,000 people this year – so it’s particularly satisfying to know that the website will get a lot of usage.
Key to their requirements was a simple content management system. This would allow staff to easily update the site with latest information for the festival goers, traders, volunteers and crew. The admin team were already familiar with wordpress, and I therefore set about creating a bespoke festival wordpress theme. All the built-in functionality required to manage the entertainment section of the website, contact and volunteer forms, plus twitter integration, and lots more behind the scenes. The ticketing system was handled by Gigantic who provided an easy way to integrate with the website.
Each year the festival has a different fancy-dress theme, which is incorporated into their advertising and on the website. 2011 saw the festival dressed as ‘Woodland Animals’, with a website styled to match. In 2012 the theme of ‘Toys’ has been chosen.
Working in tandem with Playgroup Festival’s artistic director Antony Valenti, the 2012 site has been built to be ‘re-usable’. A solid future-proof site structure was decided upon, and the basic site design was kept nice and simple to allow for decorative illustrations to stand out. These illustrations convey the theme effectively. Next year it will simply be a case of adding new illustrations to create a brand new festival website design.
Antony was great to work with. As well as having a fantastic eye for design, he really understands the way a website should be built. These factors combined with his attention to detail meant I could work very efficiently, and this saved Playgroup a significant amount of money in development time.
