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Promoting the art of improvisational jazz & platforming musicians across Europe
5 week - 2025
Art Direction
Content Design
Sana Goel
Den Kinanti
Benson Dam
Dylan Tonekham
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UX researcher and designer
Art direction and design
Interface designer and prototyping
Research and UX writer
Over the course of five weeks, we were tasked with creating an expressive and interactive microsite for a cultural organization. This project was a team exercise in sharpening our content design skills, all culminating up to the final product.
Over the course of five weeks, we were tasked with creating an expressive and interactive microsite for a cultural organization - Jazzdor. Jazzdor is an European jazz festival that celebrates the music and the artists with a focus on improvisational jazz. It primarily takes place in Germany every year .
Karl Martens : We began by taking design inspiration from the work of Dutch designer Karl Martens. His work with layering, closure and type became a starting point in our design process however this transformed with time
Ellen Lupton : Her book Graphic Design The New Basics was a big part of our process, guiding us through the many stages of this project.
The first step was forming the art direction and exploring different lines on investigations . We did this by starting with posters for Jazzdor. Along the way we collected design insights we used along the way.
The design must speak for the organizations values.
Through this poster iterations we learned to make designs that were not just visually appealing but also explained the purpose of the organization.
Visual research is the key to a strong design
Throughout the process the importance of research became clear. I learned to not design in my head and instead learn from my visual refences.
The content must be specific and relevant in helping you reach your goal.
part of this project was content design so through the feedback we recived and through application we learned to frame out content based on the requirements of the organization.
The overall feel is spontaneous and erratic-feeling, echoing the improvised nature of jazz.
Type
Anderson Grotesk (reg+ultrabold+black)
Colour
These were our prototypes for a few directions that we explored in week 4.
Telling the story of Jazzdor
We wanted our home page to represent the organization while also showcasing its history and highliting the music and artists, with clear calls to action.
Highliting the event performers
A major goal in how we went about this was to bring attention to the performers of this event to showcase the variety in jazz music. This page was the first step to that.
Spotlight on the Artists
We dedicated a page each to these bands and performers, showing their members, intruments and even their music through an audio option.
The call to action
Finally the end goal is to sell tickets for the event thus we dedicated an page to our call to action. this makes the process to get here quick and simple. The ticket call to action is also present at the end of each page.
Throughout the five weeks of this project, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of research in shaping effective design decisions. I learned how to build a cohesive brand identity through strong art direction and visual design. Developing the website strengthened my skills in prototyping, wire framing, and interaction design, as we focused on creating an experience that was both intuitive and engaging. The microsite combined visuals like images, videos, and animations with text to communicate the essence of the festival in a way that felt dynamic and user-centered.