Centennial Rebrand (2017)
Pasadena Playhouse
To celebrate a century's worth of theater and shepherd in the next 100, I co-managed a rebrand with Pentagram Design Studio (Paula Scher) and Mackey Creative Labs. Together, we built a bold new brand vision and verbal identity that reflected the new artistic leadership and programming.
I worked hand-in-hand with designers at Pentagram and developers at Mackey Creative Labs to coordinate the site and brand relaunch in 2017. This involved coordinating workshops, leading brainstorms, and providing continual feedback for iteration.
Building and
Maintaining a
New Brand
The team at Pentagram conceptualized a strong visual identity based on the Playhouse's historical context as a Los Angeles institution. Once the identity was delivered, it was in the hands of Playhouse staff to maintain the heart of this brand. I worked with the marketing coordinator to develop guidelines, best practices for designers, as well as employee documentation on verbal identity.
These guidelines were imperative as seasons went on. The iconography played an essential role in building the show's marketing, and trickled into the way we created our emails, video content, paid ads, and future merchandise.
Improving UX and navigation
A large part of the rebrand was improving the flow of the website. Due to lack of funding, the Playhouse's former website ran on legacy HTML/CSS, and the experience of buying tickets was less than optimal. It felt like a chore to buy tickets to something fun, and that's the last thing we wanted.
Many workshops and wireframes later, we cleaned up the sitemap, archived irrelevant content, and brought the ticket checkout process down from 11 steps to just 4. The site now operates on a singular landing page, an embedded calendar to easily select dates, and anchors to easily toggle from section to section.
