Challenge
Phoenix Fall Festival, an established annual dancesport competition, needed a complete website redesign to elevate the event’s branding and user experience. The previous website lacked a festive appeal and modern design, despite being functional for users to find entry forms. With the upcoming event, the challenge was to create a visually appealing website that represented the competition’s fall spirit without leaning into Thanksgiving-themed vibes while maintaining ease of use for participants.
Constraints: Client provided logos, tagline, headline typography, incorporate existing color palette, some graphic design elements used in print (added into site), registration & ticketing platform integration.
Existing site
Existing site
Existing site
Existing site
Approach
I led discovery sessions with event organizers and previous site users to identify pain points and opportunities. From there, I redesigned the site using a richer fall color palette, anchored in their original yellow but complemented with deeper tones for warmth and contrast. I structured the content to improve navigation and created a back-end dashboard for the team to manage content like judges, vendors, and announcements on their own. The brand voice was extended to social and print assets for a consistent look and feel across all channels.
Top Competitor site reviews
Proposed Sitemap
Color palette iterations (not final)
Color palette iterations
Color palette iterations
Color palette iterations
Color palette iterations
Temp site photo direction
Custom client dashboard (view)
Solution
I delivered a fully redesigned content-ready website that focused on user-friendly navigation and event information. The redesign included creating a custom internal dashboard to allow the client to easily update judges, officials, and vendors in the lead-up to the event. Beyond the website, I designed social media assets, including profile images and cover photos, as well as print-ready 2ft x 5ft banners, ensuring all materials were cohesive with the new branding.
Print Marketing Materials
Vertical banners, posters and postcards for print in various sizes. Each poster being meticulously designed to render images at their respective heights without pixelation and converting colors from digital to print.
Print banner with new tagline "all" about..
Print flyers
Social Media Graphics (b&w, colored versions provided)
Impact
The redesign was completed in time for the upcoming event, and the new website immediately garnered positive feedback from stakeholders, attendees and other Organizers. It allowed the Phoenix Fall Festival team to manage their content more easily, improved their online presence, and enhanced brand visibility across both digital and physical platforms. The updated design successfully attracted more participants and sponsors, contributing to the festival’s overall growth. Ticket sales doubled from the previous year!
Reflection
This project was a turning point in my approach to event-based design. Looking back, I’d evolve the visual language further by shifting toward a cleaner, more minimal aesthetic and softening the overall color palette and propose a refresh of the event logo to bring more cohesion and modernity to the brand. I’d also enhance the internal dashboard layout to be more intuitive for users and provide more custom fields to refine their event details even further.
