About HighTide
HighTide is a writer-centred theatre company that runs a variety of productions and development programmes allowing playwrights in the East of England to thrive. They also offer support and creative writing programmes in schools and community groups in the area, to help build confidence, wellbeing and employability. They believe in ensuring everyone, from all backgrounds, can participate in the joy and power of theatre.
The brief
HighTide wanted to update their website to create a refreshed, modern feel that could offer the excellent same experience to all through device responsiveness and accessibility. The team at HighTide wanted a website that would be 100% fit for purpose, allowing them to engage with specific audiences they have identified, particularly playwrights in the surrounding areas.
They wanted a futureproof, accessible CMS which would allow their team to easily edit content and events, and give their audiences up to date information on community projects. They specifically needed the ability to categorise their events for each strand of their output (productions, playwrights and creative writing) that lets them group past events together and provide archive content.
Fresh design
We worked closely with the team at HighTide to deliver a website to reflect exactly who they are, and what they do. Our Huddersfield team of web designers made the most of the eye-catching brand elements HighTide already had and expanded with a brand-new colour palette.
We kept the design quite minimal, with the main focus on events they are offering in the community; the black background throughout the site makes it easy to navigate – with the contrast of the yellow accents and sub-brand colour highlights, the design is really accessible and stands out.
Our designers incorporated the ‘wave’ design from their logo and created a ‘rising tide’ animation as you hover– this is then used across the site as an interactive element.
Bespoke user journey
To give HighTide a standout look, we incorporated a sidebar nav menu on the left which is always present, giving the website a modern and unique feel. This allows users to easily navigate the website, making it highly accessible, yet distinctive. The overall look and feel of the website design complements the artistic mission of HighTide, allowing everyone to have access to the joy and power of theatre.
To reflect the different strands of HighTide’s output and activity, we built a multipurpose events section with different listings for each area of work. Each listing page is complete with a filter, search and past event archive for users to browse through. Being a charity, it was important for users to have the option to donate and support the work that HighTide do – we built a custom Spektrix integration to ensure that users were easily able to donate and shop in their online bookshop.
WordPress development and integration
To make things as straightforward as possible for the team at HighTide to manage their ongoing content updates – the homepage feeds through featured events, blogs, and shop products to keep things constantly fresh without the need to manually update anything – although they can change the site’s page layouts as much as they like!
We’ve given the team full control over their site content and user journey through our custom WordPress CMS. Everything is modular so the team can easily create new content, add new pages, make amendments, and rearrange things to their liking as often as they need.
Let’s work together
We love working on website design and build projects with businesses and organisations across Yorkshire – from our head office in Huddersfield, to the de facto West Yorkshire capital Leeds, as well as Bradford, Harrogate, Halifax, Doncaster, Wakefield and beyond.
If you want website design and development services from a small web agency that understands your location and community, all while putting Yorkshire values of integrity, hard work and honest pricing at the heart of what they do, we want to hear from you! So why not contact us today?
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