Website redesign for Pleasure Dome Film & Video
I recently launched a new website design for storied Toronto film & video collective Pleasure Dome. Driven by the bin-packing layout library Packery, the new design reconfigures content boxes of various sizes to fit the available screen space. This, combined with responsive design techniques, means the site works across a full range of modern devices, such as phones, tablets and desktop computers.
I became the group’s webmaster in 2006, when we undertook a redevelopment that migrated their extensive archive to WordPress. The site grew over the years and, in particular, the types of content needing to be presented blossomed to include publications, essays and original artwork, in addition to the seasons of screenings. The new design allows these various types to be mixed-and-matched as needed, especially on the homepage.
The typographic cues are consistent with the group’s new visual identity, created and employed in print by designer Jake Pauls. The aesthetic is completed by the introduction of animated GIFs, which add movement and a suggestion of the work Pleasure Dome exhibits.
Established 1989, Pleasure Dome presents a year-round experimental media arts screening programme that includes installations and other non-traditional formats. Pleasure Dome does not submit any of its programming for prior approval by any censoring bodies.
The Pleasure Dome website is hosted by MediaTemple.
Posted October 2013