Overview
The Playwrights’ Center needed a website with as much personality as its community. Their old CMS was restrictive, and the design felt flat compared to the bold, colorful energy of their programs and print materials. I led the design and development team to rebuild the site from the ground up—one that better reflected their brand, supported their members, and gave staff the tools they actually needed to do their jobs.
Approach
We started by defining clear goals: elevate the brand’s character, simplify navigation, expand member features, and dramatically improve backend usability. Visually, we built a flexible design system inspired by magazine layouts and neo-brutalism, layering content like a theatrical stage and making copy impossible to ignore. From a UX standpoint, we consolidated sprawling pages, restructured navigation around user needs and career stages, and introduced a streamlined mega-menu for desktop and mobile. Under the hood, we rebuilt the platform in WordPress, transforming staff workarounds into intentional workflows—making content editing, event management, analytics, and email campaigns simple and scalable.
Outcome
The result is a vibrant, confident digital presence that finally matches the Playwrights’ Center’s mission and community. The new site is easier to navigate, richer in personality, more powerful for members, and far more usable for staff. More than a redesign, it’s a platform built to grow—an interactive stage that amplifies voices, supports careers, and evolves with the organization for years to come.
