Part of Leeds City Council, Leeds Film celebrates film across Leeds, hosting three separate film festivals in the city – Leeds International Film Festival, Independent Directions Film Festival and Leeds Young Film Festival.
Leeds Film wanted a new website to take its operations to the next level, showcasing each of the festivals and raising the city’s profile for all things film.
The challenge
The brand-new website needed to house all three film festivals and become the go-to for film fans. As well as providing information about screenings across the city, Leeds Film wanted the site to have the capability for users to buy festival tickets too.
With a tight deadline, the site was required in time for the release of the 2017 Leeds International Film Festival line up. This meant we had six weeks to design, build and rollout a website, complete with full ecommerce functionality.
Our solution
We wanted to create a website which did justice to Leeds Film’s reputation, as well as that of the city’s cultural scene. Providing an accessible and easy-to-use site for fans, and a platform which would save the busy Leeds Film team time, was of paramount importance.
We chose to develop the site in Umbraco which is known for its user-friendly interface. The platform would allow content to be easily created or updated by the Leeds Film team. The site also boasts mobile-first design elements to allow for optimum functionally across different devices.
Combining the payment platform, Spektrix to offer a new ticketing system and shopping basket function, users can quickly buy tickets for the films that pique their interests.
Film is at the heart of the design of the site and is influenced by the rich history and experience of cinema. The font draws inspiration from the lettering that was historically used on lightboxes outside venues to list the day's film screenings. As well as this, image sizes are displayed in similar proportions to a cinema screen to complete the user's experience of being sat in the theatre.
An ongoing partnership
We will continue to provide support for Leeds Film with further developments, primarily around the organisation’s other festivals.
