The Word on the Street is Canada’s largest book and magazine festival, taking its celebration of the written word to five cities across the country annually.
Word on the Street festival Mission Objectives
To ensure that the people of Toronto know about the annual festival, and value it as the best and broadest offerings within the Canadian publishing industry.
To ensure that the Word On The Street helps Toronto become 100% literate through its effective support for literacy awareness programs.
To Ensure That The Word On The Street Toronto is a valuable and vital event for the Canadian publishers and booksellers.
The Challenge
The organization approached us to re-envision their online presence, which didn’t properly reflect the festival’s status as the country’s preeminent book and magazine event. The site was also complex to maintain, making updating the site — with an ever-growing, ever-changing roster of authors, books, and events — every year a cumbersome affair.
My mandate was to revamp the website (the main site and the 5 festival sites) from the ground up, refresh the organization’s brand, and deliver a fully responsive user interface that would support desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.
The Solution
Working on an ambitious timeline, I performed a full UX audit and redesign. I highlighted opportunities for The Word on the Street to provide a more unified experience for its users. For the design, my approach was to let the authors, books, and events take centre-stage with an emphasis on rich, immersive content. Finally, we built a custom WordPress template that made content-entry, content-linking, and updates a snap.
Key user experience and design features:
An easily navigable site that is browser and device agnostic.
A new interactive festival schedule with venue, event times, and genre search.
A new experience showcasing authors and their books.
New sponsor and partner highlights.
New friend and author donation form.
A full redesign of the website, featuring an imagery-driven approach that lets the festival and its participants shine. The design also increased visual space to highlight informational hierarchy and infused a stronger brand presence.
An open, friendly approach to integrating social media, that encourages users to join the conversation on Instagram and Twitter.
Fully responsive and accessible design.