Responses by Het Echte Werk and Superbold.
Background: Korzo is a theater, a production house that supports its own makers and a space for classes. The site has multiple purposes depending on the target audience: As Korzo is a theater, the site targets people young and old who love experimental dance but also those who are just getting into dance and theater. As Korzo is a production house, the site works to support different upcoming and existing makers who have their own specific set of needs and place on the site. As an educational institution, Korzo supports youth and teachers from connected schools around The Hague with classes and performances. The site is the main hub for viewing a reference of the acts playing at Korzo, which artists are connected to Korzo and which classes you can attend.
The website was part of a full rebranding of Korzo Theater. Prior to working on the design of the website, our studios developed the visual identity of Korzo. We also designed all the print work for the new theater season, which started in September 2019. The print work consists of magazines, flyers, posters and much more. The new season for Korzo started with a new everything!
Design core: From a branding perspective, the dynamic K of Korzo stands for all its disciplines. We deconstructed the K to use as design elements throughout the website and also serve as a connecting element between text, image and layout. Next to that, the dark background gives an underground look and feel, and serves as a reference to a darkened theater space. From a UX perspective, the agenda is a core feature that supports all target audiences and gives a clear and attractive overview of the activities at Korzo.
Favorite details: The website’s typography is one of the more characteristic elements. We are proud of how the different typefaces come together to create a clear visual hierarchy, the best example of which is in the agenda: the date acts as a main differentiator; the name of the act follows, which is color-coded to a specific category; and supported with additional information about the event. When you hover over an event, it displays a supporting image beneath the text.
Challenges: In our holistic design for Korzo, we started with a few creative workshops before starting on the website. We got to know all the different audiences and understand their needs and wants, and how we can best appeal to all of them on a digital platform. The agenda, which serves all audiences, was the most challenging of all: it needed to support multiple acts and festivals—across multiple venues throughout The Netherlands—for different types of audiences while also displaying which classes that you can attend.
Technology: The website is developed in Umbraco, an open-source CMS. Umbraco is a very user-friendly CMS that offers developers all possibilities and guides administrators to easily find their way. Both Umbraco and the site are based on the .NET programming language.
The site has a live link with a booking system. This way shows only have to be managed in one place, and ticket sales are updated in real time. Visitors immediately see when a show is sold out. With the help of Umbraco, the shows that are imported from the booking system can easily be enriched with extra content. In addition, a lot of content is reusable, which saves the administrators a lot of work.